News Room

This week, a widely shared tweet falsely claimed that because a COVID-19 vaccine is stored at ultracold temperatures it is not a vaccine, but rather a transfection agent used to genetically modify human beings. “Any vaccine that needs to be shipped and stored at -80 degrees isn’t a vaccine. It’s a transfection agent, kept alive so it can infect your cells and transfer genetic material. Don’t let them fool you. This is genetic manipulation of humans on a massive scale. Shut it down,” the tweet falsely stated.

A look at false and misleading claims and videos circulating one month after the 2020 election and as COVID-19 cases surge. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out.

A new study indicates Illinois saw a significant increase in non-COVID 19 deaths earlier this year as the pandemic began. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign looked at data from March through May of this year and compared the numbers to previous years. They discovered roughly 120,000 “excess deaths” that could not directly be connected to COVID. “These are things that in many ways can't be explained,” said Dr. Sheldon Jacobson, a Founder Professor of Computer Science at UIUC. “They could be possibly because people are not getting treatment for acute conditions or they are not practicing preventative medicine. It could be mental health issues.”

With two vaccines expected to receive federal approval in the U.S. within a matter of weeks, hopes for beating the coronavirus are looking up. Yet for millions of workers and businesses, the emerging immunizations also raise a host of questions, not the least of which is this: Can your employer require that you get vaccinated? For now, vaccination plans are focused on prioritizing who will receive the first doses, beginning with those who are most vulnerable as well as most exposed to the disease.

Delivering a vaccine for a global pandemic that has caused nearly 1.5 million deaths and has infected more than 65 million people will require a logistical effort of extraordinary complexity. The three leading vaccine candidates, from Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, and AstraZeneca/Oxford, have very different requirements when it comes to shipping and storage, and even after the vaccines arrive at their destinations—the health clinics, hospitals, and pharmacies where vaccinations will occur—there are a host of logistical hurdles that this patchwork of health care providers must overcome to ensure efficient and equitable distribution.