Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.

An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.

AFTER THE DOCTOR who led the responses against the Covid pandemic in America was brought before a Senate hearing, false claims were shared by an Irish commentator that he had said that Covid was just the common flu.

“Doctor Fauci was in the Senate last night,” a man said to camera in a 30 July video. “Admitting, basically, that Covid was nothing more than the common flu”.

The video has been viewed more than 60,000 times and shared more than 440 times since it was shared on 30 July.

The previous night, Anthony Fauci faced adversarial questioning from Republican senators about the origins of Covid-19, and on the advice of lawyers invoked his constitutional right not to answer, casting the hearing as a character assassination.

The now-retired Fauci had been subpoenaed to testify before the committee, but said he would invoke the Fifth Amendment, indicating his lawyers believed there was a plan to entrap him in a slip-up that could result in perjury charges.

Fauci, 85, noted in his opening statement that he had testified before Congress more than 200 times over nearly four decades, saying “I proved that I believe in and respect the value of legitimate congressional oversight.”

On 6 August, that committee voted to hold Fauci in contempt.

Whatever the politics of the committee, or whether Fauci’s invocation of the fifth was justified, there was no indication at all during the hearing that Fauci had said or suggested that Covid was “nothing more than the common flu.”

The official, full video of the hearing is available on the Senate’s website.

Transcripts of the hearing show that, while the term “flu” was mentioned numerous times, it was not in the context that the Facebook video said. Nor were the mentions of “the common flu” — they were all references to swine, Russian, avian or bird flu. There was one reference to a flu vaccine.

Nor would it make sense for Fauci to say that Covid was “nothing more than the common flu” — it is not a flu.

Misinformation became rampant during the Covid pandemic, spurred in part due to a lack of knowledge about the novel disease, as well as some changes in official guidelines as more was learned about it.

Years later, opposition to the mainstream consensus about the diseases has become the basis for some loose communities, as well as becoming part of some online commentators’ identities.

With reporting from AFP.

The Journal’s FactCheck is a signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network’s Code of Principles. You can read it here. For information on how FactCheck works, what the verdicts mean, and how you can take part, check out our Reader’s Guide here. You can read about the team of editors and reporters who work on the factchecks here.

To embed this post, copy the code below on your site