“Time for an apology and statement to correct false reporting?”
GB News presenter Dan Wootton made an incorrect claim about the number of Covid deaths in a clip that’s been viewed nearly half a million times on social media.
In the clip, Wootton says the following: “While the media talks a lot of the 150,000 deaths, perhaps they should have been talking about the number of people who died ‘of Covid’ not ‘with Covid’. That was just 17,371 up to the end of quarter three 2021.”
However, during the time-frame mentioned by Wootton, 131,762 deaths were registered in England and Wales with Covid as the underlying cause.
The fact checking organisation Full Fact, highlights how Wootton’s figure refers to those who died of Covid-19 and had no pre-existing conditions. However, as we all know there are many more who died ‘of Covid’ and had pre-existing conditions.
Full Fact states that ‘the fact these people had pre-existing health conditions does not erase the fact that they died “of Covid”.
The ONS has also called the use of the figure by Wootton as “highly misleading”.
It said: “For those people dying from COVID-19, the most common pre-existing condition was diabetes. Diabetes is a chronic condition, that is serious and may make a person more vulnerable to other health problems, but this does not mean they were at risk of dying from it.”
Social media users accused GB News of spreading misinformation. One social media user wrote: “Do some basic research first! You have no right whatsoever to speak on COVID when you pedal blatant misinformation on GB News”. Another added: “Time for an apology and statement to correct false reporting?”
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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