Question

There was no pandemic.

Answer 1

This comes from former University of Ottawa physics professor Denis Rancourt, who argues there was no actual pandemic caused by a virulent pathogen. Instead, he claims excess mortality during the COVID period resulted from government responses and medical interventions rather than the virus itself.

Multiple fact-checking organizations have identified significant flaws in Rancourt's methodology and conclusions. Science Feedback's analysis reveals a critical issue with his approach: Rancourt's team correlated spikes in excess mortality during the post-vaccination period with vaccine rollout timing. This correlation-based argument fails on two fronts. First, correlation alone cannot establish causation. Second, and more importantly, these mortality spikes corresponded directly to surges in COVID-19 deaths, making the virus—not vaccines—the most likely cause.

Factcheck.org reached similar conclusions, noting that "Rancourt's conclusions are flawed because they rely on assumptions that spikes in deaths were caused by COVID-19 vaccines without showing evidence of this—and when COVID-19 itself is a clear contributor to excess deaths."

Peer-reviewed studies consistently contradict Rancourt's claims. Science Feedback notes that "published studies haven't found that vaccinated people are more likely to experience higher all-cause mortality compared to unvaccinated people." Research published in Frontiers in Medicine demonstrates that vaccination mortality rates were significantly lower than the 2019 monthly all-cause mortality rate of 0.3% for adults 65 and older and the 30-day all-cause mortality rate of 21.5% among U.S. nursing home residents with COVID-19. The study concludes that "the benefits of COVID-19 vaccines outweigh the potential risks in older frail populations."

Comments

I love how you started with the original source by specifying where the claim came from and then stated how numerous organizations have already seen flaws in the author's conclusions. I appreciate your direct tone in connecting Science Feedback's analysis with your own connections to prove this claim as false. I do think adding more from the peer-reviewed studies you mentioned that deny Rancourt's would have a great positive impact in supporting your own claim.

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You did a really good job of finding credible sources to support your fact check. It was a good idea to take a look at another analysis of the original claim from Science Feedback and use it to help emphasize your own idea. It's clear that you put effort into your research, good work!

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I love how you start this, identifying the original source and clarifying his actual claim it really helps the reader see what you're checking. Your argument starts very strong with the basis that correlation doesn't mean causation and breaking down his teams reasoning behind the mortality. Lastly your conclusion pointing to the opposite being true is well written and comes across very clear.

Answer 2

The man in the attached video states that if the US had not made a big announcement about COVID-19 there would not have been a pandemic. He claims it simply would have been a regular winter sickness. However, according to the National Institute of Health in 2020-2021 COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death, just below cancer and heart disease. During its first phases in early 2020 this virus accounted for one in eight deaths. 

NIH: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/covid-19-was-third-leading-cause-death-united-states-both-2020-2021 

By May of 2020, only a few months after the coronavirus was discovered there had been 362,705 deaths and 5,817,385 cases. If this was just any regular winter sickness it would not have had such a large death rate. Influenza, which is quite common in winter, only had 1,675 positive flu cases in the 20’-21’ flu season. A quote from Families Fighting Flu states, “According to the World Health Organization, 290,000 to 650,000 people die of flu-related causes every year worldwide. COVID-19 has killed over 5 million people worldwide in just 2 years.” 

FFF: https://familiesfightingflu.org/flu-deaths-vs-covid-19-deaths/ 

CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6924e2.htm 

DeathToll:https://www.who.int/data/stories/the-true-death-toll-of-covid-19-estimating-global-excess-mortality 

Comments

I agree! I like how you linked your sources at the end!

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Great claim, especially in the second part of your answer with the specific data and your direct tone. I think you could have added some elaboration on the depth of the early phases of Covid-19, as you slightly mentioned it in the beginning. I appreciate your easy to follow writing.

Answer 3

Based on the reports from multiple credible sources the claim that "there was no pandemic" is false. Covid-19 was a significant cause of excess mortality and was reported by the (National Institutes of Health)NIH as being the third leading cause of death in both 2020 and 202, behind only heart disease and cancer. This data directly contradicts the claim that the pandemic was not a real health crisis.

Data From the (World Health Organization)WHO provides a more global perspective of the pandemic which estimated that the death toll of the Covid-19 was significantly higher than that of seasonal influenza, "The total number of excess deaths globally for 2020 and 2021 was approximately 14.9million." This very significant figure representing millions of unexpected deaths, proves the existence and severity of the pandemic.

NIH "Covid 19 was the 3rd leading cause of death in the united states in both 2020 and 2021"

WHO "The true death toll of Covid-19: estimating global mortality."

Comments

Your fact check was easy to read and understand. I appreciate how you linked your sources at the end and how both sources were reliable. Also, including statistics to support your claim was definitely a good call and strengthened your idea. I think providing a specific definition of a pandemic may make it stronger, but you proved your point well. Good job!

Answer 4

The claim that there was no pandemic is false. In the video provided, a former physics professor at the University of Ottawa states that "there was no pandemic that caused excess mortality," and insists that if there was no government or medical interference during the spread of Covid-19, the rates of mortality would not have been as high as they were (in comparison to historical pandemics). He said that he came to this conclusion from "analyzing the data," though he did not provide any specific numbers or statistics to back that up. 

First of all, the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) publicly declared the Coronavirus as a national pandemic on March 11th, 2020 (https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---11-march-2020). This announcement was followed by a notice claiming that the use of the word "pandemic" should not be thrown around aimlessly, as that could spark unwarranted fear and outrage in the public. In other words, categorizing Covid-19 as a pandemic was a serious choice by the organization that came with research and consideration. 

In addition, the situation is considered a pandemic when "a new disease or new strain of an existing disease spreads worldwide." (https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/what-is-a-pandemic). Looking at a timeline of Covid-19 published by the CDC (https://www.cdc.gov/museum/timeline/covid19.html), we can see that the illness originated in Wuhan, China during December of 2019. About a month after, 282 laboratory-confirmed worldwide cases were reported in 4 different countries: China, Thailand, Japan, and South Korea. By March, 2020, there were more than 118,000 cases in 114 countries and 4,291 deaths, leading to the Trump Administration declaring a nationwide emergency and establishing travel bans on March 13th, 2020. The death toll from this virus reached over 1,000,000 worldwide that year by the end of September. 
 

In conclusion, Covid-19 was considered a pandemic because it had been spread worldwide, resulting in an exceptionally high number of deaths. This evidence proves just how severe this pandemic and its effects on the world was. 

Comments

Hi there,

I love the way your answer was well organized through different paragraphs, and the sources were clearly cited and referenced. Even though the COVID-19 pandemic was a pandemic, others could've also helped fact-check this claim. Such as the influenza pandemic. But overall, great job!

Answer 5

This claim comes from a video of a former University of Ottawa physics professor. In the video, professor Denis Rancourt states that if the government had not called COVID-19 a pandemic, it wouldn’t have become as deadly as it did. He goes on to claim that more people tend to pass away in the winter time and that’s just what COVID was, nothing more. 

This claim could not be further from the truth. According to the Oxford Dictionary, the definition of the word pandemic is “a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease over a whole country or the world at a particular time”. Similarly, according to the American Lung Association, “Pandemics are known to cause large-scale social disruption, economic loss, and general hardship, and COVID-19 has been no exception”. While Rancourt’s claim that more people get sick in the winter time is true, the yearly cold and flu outbreak is nothing compared to COVID. In the case of COVID, “Cases of novel coronavirus (nCoV) were first detected in China in December 2019, with the virus spreading rapidly to other countries across the world. This led WHO to declare a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on 30 January 2020 and to characterize the outbreak as a pandemic on 11 March 2020”. The rapid spread,high infection rates, and sustained transmission across multiple countries and continents resulted in COVID being declared a world-wide pandemic. 

https://www.lung.org/blog/epidemic-pandemic-endemic-covid#:~:text=The%20number%20of%20people%20affected,19%20has%20been%20no%20exception.

Furthermore, according to the World Health Organization, the flu kills 290,000 to 650,000 people in a given year. In the first year of the pandemic, COVID killed 1,813,188 people. To claim that COVID 19 was never a pandemic is wildly incorrect. Not only was COVID absolutely considered a pandemic, the government not referring to it as such would not have eradicated the issue. COVID is considered to be the 5th deadliest pandemic in world history. 

https://www.who.int/data/stories/the-true-death-toll-of-covid-19-estimating-global-excess-mortality

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/influenza-(seasonal)

https://www.who.int/europe/emergencies/situations/covid-19

Answer 6

This claim is false. According to the World Heath Organization, Covid-19 was officially declared a global pandemic on March 11, 2020. The CDC also reports that Covid-19 spread worldwide, infected millions of people, and caused millions of deaths. 

Data from the John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center shows the number of cases and deaths around the world, confirming the pandemics scale and severity. 

Comments

Hi there,

Great job on the numerous sources; however, this answer could've been a bit more in-depth on why COVID-19 is considered a pandemic and what other pandemics have occurred throughout history.