‘Sky News’ screenshot linking vaccines with climate change is a fake
A fake screenshot that claims to show a Sky News article about vaccines and climate change is being shared on Twitter and Facebook.
The fake article carries the headline: “UK Heatwave: Vaccines could be the way to battle the climate crises!
The text beneath says: “Getting your vaccine for the new Centurion strain could help battle climate change says ‘national agent’ ‘beating climate change can only be done once we all get our vaccines’ ‘Insider claims that hot 40 degree temperatures could cause blood clots this summer amongst the general public’. [sic]”
However, Sky News has confirmed to Full Fact that this screenshot is a fabrication, and it has never published such an article. There are clues to this in the fact that it is incoherently written, poorly punctuated and uses the incorrect name of a new variant. A search of the Sky News website does not show any similar articles.
The fake article appears to suggest that the government is encouraging people to get a Covid-19 vaccination—perhaps against the so-called Centaurus variant—in order to limit or prevent the harm from climate change.
It also mentions blood clotting as a risk of hot weather, which is a possibility.
Although the NHS does encourage eligible people in the UK to get vaccinated against Covid-19, this has nothing to do with climate change.
We often see fabricated screenshots supposedly showing mainstream media reports as part of our work monitoring misinformation on social media. Recent examples have included screenshots of a faked CNN Twitter account and faked BBC News and ITV News articles.
Image courtesy of Mark Ramsay
