Read on Twitter
Good example of how fake news spreads popped up on my timeline today. Saw a few posts from people indignant that an “expert” had advised they shouldn’t feel safe to hug their children once they’d had their vaccination.
This seemed a strange comment to have made, so I looked up the story and found it came from an interview with Professor Janet Lord on the Today programme on Radio 4. So I went and had a listen to it.
And guess what? She wasn’t asked about children, she was asked about grandchildren. She advised against this, pointing out that the vaccines take several weeks to become fully effective.
I think to most people, the difference between people hugging their own kids (in their own household), and elderly grandparents doing so, is obvious.
But on numerous websites, including Sky news and the Evening Standard (see pictures), the stories have been published suggesting she was asked about children, not grandchildren. And so the “story” has spread over Twitter etc.
