The current monkeypox outbreak has nothing to do with Covid or any vaccine  

3 Jun 2022 | Full Fact's weekly news
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FACT CHECK
The current monkeypox outbreak has nothing to do with Covid or any vaccine

Social media users and misinformation-spreading blogs have made a number of false assertions about the current monkeypox outbreak. Let’s go through a few of the specific claims:

Monkeypox is not shingles in disguise

Shingles is an infection caused by the reactivation of the herpes varicella-zoster virus, which also causes chickenpox. Only people who have had chickenpox can get shingles.

Some have suggested that shingles is a side effect of Covid vaccinations and these cases are being deliberately miscategorised by authorities as monkeypox to hide vaccine side effects.

While there is some mixed evidence that vaccination may, in rare cases, reactivate the shingles virus, there is no evidence monkeypox cases are anything other than monkeypox.

Although monkeypox lesions can look like chickenpox, monkeypox and chickenpox/shingles are different diseases caused by different viruses.

Every monkeypox case in the UK has been confirmed by a PCR test.

Monkeypox is not a symptom of a form of AIDS caused by Covid vaccines

There’s no evidence that Covid vaccines can cause autoimmune disorders. AIDS is a late-stage progression of an HIV infection. HIV can only be contracted through direct contact with body fluids from someone who has HIV with a detectable viral load. Covid vaccines don’t contain HIV, so they cannot cause AIDS.

Monkeypox is not linked to the modified chimpanzee virus in AstraZeneca’s vaccine

It’s true that the AstraZeneca vaccine contains a type of weakened and modified virus derived from chimpanzees. But it’s not from the same family of diseases responsible for monkeypox. The weakened virus in the vaccine is an adenovirus. The monkeypox virus belongs to an entirely separate family of diseases known as orthopoxviruses. There is no possibility whatsoever that the two are linked.

More monkeypox fact checks ([link removed])
FACT CHECK
How much will the Platinum Jubilee cost? ([link removed])

Before being understandably deleted, a widely shared tweet claimed that if the £1 billion being spent on the Jubilee was divided amongst the population, "it would mean a windfall for each household of £38,000." The maths here is wrong and the calculation comes to £38, not £38,000.

But it’s not correct to say instead the Jubilee will cost every household £38, because the ingredients of this sum are unreliable too. It’s not exactly clear how much the celebration will cost, but we haven’t seen evidence that it will be as much as £1 billion.

This figure appears to come from a DCMS commitment on event spending for 2022—but much of the £1 billion (£778m) is being spent on the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

In the 2021 Budget, Rishi Sunak announced "£28 million to fund the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in 2022, delivering a major celebration for the UK", around £1 per household.

It’s not clear how that figure may have changed since it was published. It’s understood the DCMS will not be able to confirm final costs until after the event. Some of the costs of the Jubilee celebrations will be borne by partner organisations rather than paid for by the taxpayer.

So the Jubilee events themselves are unlikely to have a significant impact on the economy. But what about the cost of the extra day off?

DCMS did an impact assessment and said its best estimate was that it would cost the UK’s GDP £2.39 billion. This takes into account both the output lost from the extra bank holiday, but also the output that might be gained in certain sectors like hospitality and tourism.

The Jubilee and the economy ([link removed])
FACT CHECK
The FDA did not say Covid vaccines are causing more heart attacks ([link removed])

A post originating from former Made in Chelsea star Francis Boulle is being reshared online. He claimed that the US Food and Drug Administration had admitted that heart attacks are 71 times higher following the Covid vaccine than following other vaccines.

The tweet links to a recording of a virtual meeting of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC). But the claim he quoted did not come from an FDA or VRBPAC official.

The virtual meeting included an open public hearing session, where members of the public could make their own short presentations. This claim was made by a tech entrepreneur and regular proponent of Covid-19 misinformation Steve Kirsch, who is not affiliated with any official healthcare organisations.

Mr Kirsch’s claim appears to be a result of a misreading or misunderstanding of the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System. The British Heart Foundation says there’s no evidence of an increased risk of death from cardiac arrest following vaccination.

Why this claim is wrong ([link removed])
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* Pfizer CEO did not say he wanted to decrease population by 50% ([link removed])
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