FALSE: COVID-19 vaccines kill elderly people

At a glance

• Claim: COVID-19 vaccines can kill elderly people.
• Rating: FALSE
• The facts: As of Friday, April 30, there is no proof that the deaths of the elderly who received the COVID-19 vaccine are linked to the vaccine.
• Why we fact-checked this: The video containing the claim has 6,400 views, 167 reactions, 151 comments, and 225 shares, as of April 28. This was spotted on Facebook’s fact-checking tool as potentially misleading.

Complete details

On Thursday, April 23, the Facebook page “Diva” posted a video with the caption “Confirmed! Biden’s Forced Vaccines Coming! The Truth About Re-Education Vaccines & Mark of the Beast.” The video contained a segment from TV channel Worldview Weekend Broadcast Network, wherein journalist Leo Hohmann talked about the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in the United States.

In the video, Hohmann said: “Depopulation…that is the bottomline agenda of these folks. And so what do you do? You rollout a vaccine that is killing a lot of people, especially elderly, not all elderly as we said, but I think the average age of those dying from the vaccine is around 75. So you’re killing elderly and sterilizing the young.”

He mentioned that the average age of those dying from the vaccine was 75 years old and that, in the United Kingdom, pregnant women were advised against taking the Pfizer vaccine. 

The video containing the claim has 6,400 views, 167 reactions, 151 comments, and 225 shares, as of April 28. This was spotted on Facebook’s fact-checking tool as potentially misleading.

This claim is false. 

As of Friday, April 30, there is no proof that the deaths of the elderly who received the COVID-19 vaccine are linked to the vaccine.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) on January 22, the reports of deaths in elderly individuals who received the Pfizer vaccine didn’t suggest any unexpected or untoward increase in fatalities among this group in relation to the vaccine. In the same report, they said that taking the vaccine was still more beneficial than harmful for the elderly. 

In the Philippines, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Friday, April 23, that most of the recorded fatalities after COVID-19 vaccination in the country had preexisting illnesses. Their deaths were, therefore, not linked to the vaccine, but to their preexisting illnesses.

Health organizations still advise elderly people to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and say it is safe for them to receive it.

On their website, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says: “The risk of severe illness from COVID-19 increases with age. This is why CDC recommends that adults 65 years and older receive COVID-19 vaccines.”

Johns Hopkins Medicine also says that the US FDA and other reviewers consider diverse populations in COVID-19 vaccine trials for safety purposes. These populations include older age groups. They also say that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which are the two most commonly administered COVID-19 vaccines in the US, have good safety records.

In terms of age restrictions, the WHO only advises those below 16 years old not to take the Pfizer vaccine. The US advises those below 18 years old against taking the Moderna vaccine.

Also, while it is true that pregnant women in the UK were previously advised not to take the vaccine due to lack of research, UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has eventually advised pregnant women to be vaccinated at the same time as those in their age or risk group. – Jana Cruz/Rappler.com

This article was written by a Rappler intern and reviewed by a member of Rappler’s research team and a senior editor. Learn more about Rappler’s internship program here.

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