Complaint
A reader challenged the accuracy of the headline, observing that most hospital patients, acute or otherwise do not have Covid. ÌýThe complainant also criticised the accuracy of a statement included in the article which claimed to identify the type of Covid patient likely to be in intensive care. ÌýAnd they argued the vast majority of emergency care admissions and Covid deaths involved vaccinated people and accused ±«Óãtv News of stigmatising unvaccinated people “through deceptionâ€. ÌýThe ECU considered this complaint in the light of the ±«Óãtv Editorial Standards relating to accuracy.
Outcome
For information about the accuracy of the headline, the ECU consulted data on NHS England’s Covid-19 Hospital Activity. ÌýThis showed that on the date the article was published the numbers of beds occupied by patients with Covid was less than 5%. ÌýA separate report by the UK Health Security Agency also showed that unvaccinated individuals accounted for 14% of those with a confirmed case of Omicron admitted to hospital in England in the same month. ÌýThese figures are best understood when taken alongside the proportion of the population who have been vaccinated, but the ECU agreed the headline, in those specific respects, did not meet the required standards of due accuracy.Ìý
The complainant also challenged a statement in the article which suggested unvaccinated younger people took up around 75% of the intensive care beds in the local hospital and nationally. ÌýStatistics from the British Medical Journal showed that the proportion of patients admitted to critical care with confirmed Covid-19 who were also unvaccinated had varied over time and at one point reached 75 per cent.Ìý However separate data published by the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC) documented the proportion of patients aged up to 39 in ICU from May to December 2021 did not exceed 10% of the total. So although the majority of Covid cases in ICU involved unvaccinated people,Ìý it was inaccurate to say that 75% of all ICU beds were taken by young patients with Covid.
Ìý
The ECU understood the mistake was to some degree attributable to confusion on the part of ±«Óãtv journalists over the exact meaning of words used by a member of staff from the hospital featured in the article. The ICNARC data was not published until after the ±«Óãtv News report, so reporters could not have been aware of it, but it does not appear that the claim was checked at the time. The ECU therefore also upheld this part of the complaint. The ECU did not however find any evidence that would imply that a judgment was being made about the behaviour of those who chose to remain unvaccinated, andÌý did not therefore uphold the claim they had been “s³Ù¾±²µ³¾²¹³Ù¾±²õ±ð»åâ€Ìý by the article.
Partly upheld
Further action
The article has been amended to reflect the finding, which has been reported to the Board of ±«Óãtv News and discussed with the online team concerned.