No evidence that people are being injected with saline instead of COVID-19 vaccines to cover up vaccine fatalities

Hundreds of social media users have shared a baseless claim that large numbers of the general public have received a saline injection instead of a COVID-19 vaccine to coverup severe side-effects of inoculation.

The claim has been incorporated into a meme and shared across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram (here , here , here , here and here). It reads: “Some of you are being injected with saline because it would look too suspicious if everybody died at the same time.”

One individual who shared the meme on Facebook also added their own comment: “If you didn't get ill from the jab, you likely just got the saline jab...” (here).

There is no evidence to support this claim. On the contrary, current evidence shows COVID-19 vaccines have loosened the link between disease and death. While there are also reports of isolated incidents of people mistakenly receiving saline shots, these incidents have been rare.

A 1.8ml measure of saline (sodium chloride) should be mixed with the vaccine developed by Pfizer/BioNTech prior to inoculation (here and here), In a few cases resulted in a full saline injection being administered.

Six people received an accidental saline injection at the Niagara Region Public Health Clinic in Ontario, Canada, on July 16. As a precaution, a total 205 people who attended the clinic that day were later asked to book a repeat appointment (here).

A similar incident at Ikoma City Hospital in Japan happened in May. The facility said it measured patient antibodies a month later to double check – and those with low counts were given another shot (here).

These incidents, however, are not enough to discount the overall effectiveness of vaccination programmes around the world.

According to the Our World in Data project by the University of Oxford, 3.89bn doses of a COVID-19 vaccine have been administered. This means 27.2% of the world’s population have received at least one dose (here).

Current evidence also shows that vaccine rollouts have had a positive effect on breaking the link between COVID-19 infections, severe disease and death (here , here and here).

VERDICT

Missing context. There is no evidence to support the claim of a ploy to inoculate people with saline solutions to dilute COVID-19 vaccine side-effect statistics. Data shows vaccine programmes are weakening the link between disease and death.

This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.