Not Real News: A look at what didn’t happen in recent weeks

Not Real News is a weekly fact check of widely circulated but inaccurate stories.

There is no connection between rising COVID-19 cases and elections, contrary to claims online

FALSE CLAIM: COVID-19 only spikes during election seasons.

THE FACTS: There is no connection between rising COVID-19 cases and the electoral process, epidemiology experts say.

Since the first U.S. case was confirmed in January 2020, the virus has spiked near the end of the year, but also during summer, nowhere near major elections. But some on social media are falsely claiming the virus is a tool to control election outcomes.

“Some won’t figure out the Mysterious Connection between The Coronavirus & The Election!!!” reads a caption on one Instagram post. “It’s Called Election Interference by Mail In Ballots & the Machines. Wake-Up America.”

But elections do not dictate when COVID-19 spikes.

“There’s no biologically plausible or credible reason why spikes would be linked with election seasons,” Dr. Emily Smith, an epidemiologist and assistant professor of emergency medicine and surgery at Duke University, wrote in an email to the AP. “Surges are due to increases in cases, which are related to human behavior. So reduced masking and vaccination rates are associated with case increases. Not election seasons.”

Although there is no formal definition of a spike, it can be characterized as the peak of a consistent increase in cases, said Dr. Janak Patel, director of the department of infection control and healthcare epidemiology at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. The U.S. has seen rises in COVID-19 cases that coincide with election seasons in November — but they have also occurred during the summer, according to Patel.

Data from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention shows that the largest spike occurred the week ending Jan. 8, 2022, when 30.5% of reported COVID-19 tests came back positive. By contrast, cases had been decreasing in the lead-up to the off-year election on Nov. 2, 2021, a few months prior. Cases did spike close to the 2020 presidential election after they began rising in September of that year, but the 2022 midterms were a different story. After a peak with a 14.2% positivity rate the week ending July 23, cases went down leading up to the election on Nov. 8.

“I haven’t seen any particular timing with elections,” Patel said. “And people campaign for elections throughout the year.”

It is unclear whether the current pattern of COVID-19 waves will continue, or why it has occurred thus far, since the virus hasn’t been around long enough for scientists to know for sure, according to Patel.

While COVID-19 hospital admissions are currently rising — there were 18,871 for the week ending Sept. 2 — they’re a far cry from past peaks, like the 44,000 weekly hospital admissions in early January, the nearly 45,000 in late July 2022, or the 150,000 admissions during the omicron surge of January 2022.

No, the U.S. did not send Ukraine $6 billion by mistake

FALSE CLAIM: The U.S. accidentally sent Ukraine $6 billion in military aid.

THE FACTS: The claim misinterprets an announcement by a Pentagon spokesperson in June that the agency had overestimated the value of weapons it sent to Ukraine over the past two years by $6.2 billion. That meant more could be sent in the future without asking Congress for additional funds, not that billions of dollars had been sent in error.

A recent episode of comedian Joe Rogan’s podcast has caused the erroneous claim to resurface. In a clip circulating online of the Sept. 7 episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Rogan states that the U.S. “accidentally sent” $6 billion to Ukraine. Rogan made the comment during a conversation with former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard about the government’s response to the recent wildfires in Maui.

But Rogan, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, misconstrued the Pentagon’s June statement.

Sabrina Singh, a spokesperson for the agency, said during the June news conference that the Pentagon had overestimated the value of weapons it sent to Ukraine since the start of the war by $6.2 billion, resulting in a surplus for future security packages. A detailed review of the accounting error found that replacement costs, rather than book value, were used to calculate the value of equipment pulled from Pentagon stocks for Ukraine, according to Singh.

The Pentagon initially stated that it had overestimated the weapons’ value by at least $3 billion. Final calculations showed there was an error of $3.6 billion in the current fiscal year and $2.6 billion in the 2022 fiscal year, which ended last Sept. 30.

Singh added the $6.2 billion was “just going to go back into the pot of money” that’s been allocated for future withdrawals of Pentagon equipment. The Pentagon this month announced a new $600 million package of long-term aid to Ukraine, which will provide funding for an array of weapons and other equipment. The assistance comes from money previously approved by Congress.

President Joe Biden has requested $21 billion more in military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine in the final months of 2023.

Bill Gates-funded climate change venture doesn’t call for razing 70 million acres of trees

FALSE CLAIM: Bill Gates is backing efforts to cut down 70 million acres of trees in order to fight global warming.

THE FACTS: There is no plan to cut down 70 million acres of trees.

The U.S. Forest Service has a 10-year plan to reduce the risk of wildfires across millions of acres of forests in the American West through a combination of controlled burns, selective tree culls and other forest management strategies.

Gates, separately, is among the investors in a company proposing to help thin out California’s densely packed forests and bury tree remains in Nevada.

But many social media users are sharing a video that features a woman speaking in front of a screenshot of a story on a website known to publish fake or misleading content.

“Bill Gates Pushes Plan to Chop Down 70 Million Acres of Trees to ‘Fight Global Warming,’ ” the story headline reads. “How is this green?” the woman on the video says incredulously to the camera. “How is this helping the planet?”

In actuality, the Microsoft founder is among the lead investors in Kodama Systems, a startup company seeking to selectively remove trees from dense, wildfire-prone forests in California and bury their remains across the state line in Nevada.

Gates, through his Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which invests in companies developing technology and other innovative solutions to global warming, is among a group of funders that have committed $6.6 million to the company, according to a December news release.

“These claims are false,” Alex Reid, a spokesperson for Gates, wrote in an email.

Kodama spokesperson James Sedlak similarly rejected the claims, noting the 70 million acres cited in the posts misrepresent a figure cited in a Forbes article about the company. The July article states the U.S. Forest Service aims to “thin” some 70 million acres of densely packed forest in the American West in order to mitigate the risk of severe wildfires.