A lot of fake news is being spread in the UK and around the world about lockdown measures, as a result of the increasing number of people infected with COVID-19.
The BBC has done some fact-checking on some of the false claims related to the closure.
Claim: "Here we are a year later, the world closed for a survival rate of 99.97%"
Rating: This claim and many others like it are untrue.
The latest data, including research from the University of Cambridge, shows that the percentage of people who have been infected with COVID-19 and who have survived is 99.3%.
This may not seem like a big difference in percentage, but if we calculate it with numbers, it turns out that the number of these COVID-19 survivors would be 3 in 10 thousand according to the false claim, not 7 in 10 thousand, as stated in the Cambridge University report.
Claim: Suicides have increased by 200% during lockdowns
Rating: The only recent reliable data available on suicides in England, from the University of Manchester, has found that rates have not increased during the lockdown.
Stay-at-home orders and the economic impact of the pandemic have undoubtedly taken a toll on people's mental health.
However, the posts shared claiming that suicides have increased by 200% during the pandemic are false.
Claim: Every winter, hundreds die from respiratory illnesses every day as a result of the flu... "why are we closed"?
Reasoning: Flu, a serious respiratory virus, can be deadly – but there are vaccines and treatments available. For the coronavirus, vaccines have only recently become available.
The long-term effects of Covid can also be much more severe for many people and it has a much greater transmission capacity, compared to seasonal flu.
Covid is also more deadly, says Prof Andrew Pekosz, faculty director at Johns Hopkins University in the US.
"Covid-19 is a more serious disease and has a higher mortality rate than influenza in all age groups, except perhaps children under the age of 12."
Claim: "The Covid-19 death rate has been falsely inflated"
Rating: More than 125,000 Covid deaths have been recorded in the UK so far.
Around 90% of deaths where Covid appeared on the death certificate had the virus as the underlying cause attributed by a doctor, according to the UK's Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Among other false claims about the alleged damages caused by the closure are:
"Sweden without lockdown did better than Great Britain"
Assessment: It is true that Sweden has had a lower Covid death rate than the UK, but it has fared significantly worse than its neighbours, who had applied stricter initial restrictions.
Also among other false claims in this regard were the tendency to present as untrue the recommendations of state institutions for closure, as well as unsubstantiated suspicions about false claims about the damage caused by the PCR test.