Social media posts claim COVID-19 vaccines could contain trackers, citing a video showing a positive reading when a device designed to detect pet chips is held over the arm of a vaccinated woman. This is false; the person who posted the video subsequently described it as a joke, and US health authorities say the vaccines do not contain trackers.
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"They are literally tagging and tracking everybody taking the Jab," says a June 24, 2021 Facebook post featuring the video.
Screenshot of a Facebook post taken July 2, 202
In the clip, the pet chip reader -- used to identify lost animals -- is held over a woman's right arm and finds nothing, but returns a result when held over her left, in which she said she received her shot.
It was posted on Tik Tok by user jasmine_0708, where it received more than 1.1 million likes and more than 400,000 shares. It then spread to Facebook, Instagram, as well as on Tik Tok.
But the user later posted that the video was a joke, saying "it's obviously a dog chip" that was being detected.
Screenshot of a Tik Tok comment taken July 2, 2021
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that COVID-19 shots do not contain trackers.
"No, the government is not using the vaccine to track you," it says in a frequently asked questions sheet.
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"There are no trackers in the vaccines themselves. State governments track where you got the vaccine and which kind you received using a computerized database to make sure you get all recommended doses at the right time," the sheet says.
And Dr Jason Farley, a professor and nurse practitioner in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Johns Hopkins Schools of Nursing and Medicine, told AFP on July 1 that there is no "chip in any... vaccine product."
According to fact sheets provided by health authorities in the US and Canada, none of the available COVID-19 vaccinations (Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson or AstraZeneca) contain any metal-based ingredients.
AFP Fact Check has debunked a series of false claims about COVID-19 vaccines containing microchips, part of a flood of inaccurate information circulating online about the deadly disease.