UK phone booth defibrillator conversions began before COVID pandemic | Fact check
The claim: Post implies UK defibrillator program was a response to COVID-19 vaccine side effects
An April 27 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) shows an image of an old phone booth in the U.K. that has been fitted with a defibrillator ? a device that can be used to restore a heartbeat in someone suffering from cardiac arrest.
"Phone boxes repurposed for defibrillators," reads the caption. "Even children are now at risk of heart problems such as myocarditis due to the safe and effective poison so many trusted in."
Some commenters on the post connected the image to the COVID-19 vaccine.
"For all the clotshot participants," wrote one.
Another posted an emoji of a dripping syringe and a skull and crossbones.
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Our rating: Missing context
The implied claim is wrong. The U.K. phone booth conversion program predates the COVID-19 vaccine and the pandemic itself, which began with an outbreak of the illness in China in December 2019.
UK phone booth conversions reported more than a decade ago
A British non-profit and an area trade group organized an initiative to refurbish old telephone booths and install defibrillators inside them years before the first COVID-19 outbreak in 2019 and the development of the COVID-19 vaccines in 2020.
A video about the project was uploaded to YouTube in July 2019, and web archives describing the initiative date back to at least 2016. U.K. phone booth to defibrillator conversions were also reported on by The Guardian in 2016 and the BBC in 2012.
The phone booth in the Facebook post features the logo for British Telecom, a U.K. communications company that has been working to shed its inventory of phone booths as payphone use has declined. The company's website mentions that the booths "have been adopted and turned into a range of facilities over the years, from defibrillator units and libraries to mini art galleries and local museums."
Myocarditis ? heart inflammation ? is a rare potential side effect of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Yale School of Medicine. However, infection with the COVID-19 virus itself has a much higher risk of causing myocarditis, according to the American Heart Association.
One study of more than 7,000 myocarditis patients found that the relative risk of heart failure or death among patients between ages 12-39 with no pertinent pre-existing health conditions was significantly higher when myocarditis was caused by a COVID-19 infection than when it was caused by vaccination.
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USA TODAY reached out to the Facebook user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
Logically Facts also debunked the claim.
Our fact-check sources:
The Guardian, Feb. 19, 2016, Emergency call: the village phone boxes saving lives
BBC, April 13, 2012, Phone box transformed into life-saving defibrillator
Community Heartbeat, July 17, 2019, Convert a phone box (Wayback Machine archive)
BritishCoatingsFed (YouTube), June 17, 2019, The Minutes Matter Campaign
Minutes Matter, March 5, 2016, Minutes Matter (Wayback Machine archive)
Yale School of Medicine, May 16, 2023, Q&A: What Causes Rare Instances of Myocarditis After mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines?
American Heart Association, Aug. 22, 2022, COVID-19 infection poses higher risk for myocarditis than vaccines
British Medical Journal, 2023, Clinical outcomes of myocarditis after SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination in four Nordic countries: population based cohort study
British Telecom, August 17, 2023, As red phone box approaches 100th birthday, BT reveals 1,000 kiosks up for grabs
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Misleading post ties phone box program to COVID vaccine | Fact check