Did Bill Gates claim COVID-19 vaccines may not work? Can pregnancy tests reliably diagnose testicular cancer? Was a woman caught filling up plastic bags with gasoline in the UK amidst the shortage? Keep on reading to get the low-down on this week’s hottest rumors!

Did Bill Gates say COVID-19 vaccines may not work?

A video of Bill Gates being interviewed on CBS News and questioned about the COVID-19 vaccines was recently posted on Instagram. In the video, Bill states “We don’t know if these vaccines will work. We don’t know if they’ll work to avoid deaths, we don’t know if they’ll work to avoid transmission.” Underneath the video reads “And yet they are pushing to make them [the vaccines] mandatory?” — complete with an exploding head emoji.

The post’s comments are full of people shocked by the fact that the vaccines are being made mandatory in a lot of workplaces across the US when even Bill Gates isn’t sure about their efficacy or safety.

So then, what’s the verdict? Well, the video is real, but it’s from an interview that took place on July 22, 2020 — before any of the results of the phase three vaccine trials had been published. So, at the time, what Bill said was true.

However, we now know that the vaccines are safe and immensely effective at protecting people from COVID-19. The video uploaded to Instagram was designed to spread misinformation, and thankfully, it’s now been labeled as such:

To date, the Gates Foundation has donated over $1.8 billion to support the global response to COVID-19. Click here to read about all the good work that has been done.

Can pregnancy tests reliably diagnose testicular cancer?

A video of three men claiming pregnancy tests can be used to detect testicular cancer recently went viral on Facebook — definitely not the first time this rumor has made the rounds on social media.

While it’s true that a positive pregnancy test could be an indication of testicular cancer, it is not a reliable method of diagnosis.

Certain types of testicular cancer produce elevated levels of the same hormone that increases in women in the early weeks of pregnancy, but a false positive pregnancy test could also be due to a man taking certain types of medication, fertility treatments, or a urinary tract infection.

Want a reliable way of telling the real from the bogus? Why not give Trend Micro Check a shot? It’s the perfect tool for detecting misinformation.

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Was a woman caught filling up a plastic bag with gasoline in the UK amidst the shortage?

Considering the fact that the UK is currently in the middle of a gasoline shortage so bad the military has been brought in to help resolve it, if somebody were to seemingly ignore the £30 maximum spending limit and stock up on gasoline anyway, it would be a pretty inconsiderate thing to do, right?

Yeah, and that’s what a video recently uploaded to Twitter tried to get people to believe. The video claims to show a woman in Tooting, south London getting around the new purchasing limits by filling up a large plastic bag with gasoline, and it’s been viewed nearly 230,000 times!

Although it does look like the scenes took place on a rainy day in London, the video was actually recorded at least as early as December 2019 — and in Houston, Texas.

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