First, conspiracy theorists claimed without evidence that the COVID-19 vaccine caused Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin to collapse during a regular season National Football League game Jan. 2. Then, they spread the baseless rumor that someone pretending to be Hamlin appeared at the Bills’ Jan. 22 NFL playoff game.
Now, they’re wrongly claiming that Hamlin is dead. One Jan. 25 Facebook post cites a photo of Hamlin in the hospital as evidence.
“Damar Hamlin has no IV bag hooked up, monitors are turned off… he’s a corpse,” the post says.
This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook.)
Hamlin tweeted the picture on Jan. 8, when he was still at Buffalo General Medical Center/Gates Vascular Institute.
“GAMETIME!!!” he wrote, tagging his team in the post with a blue heart emoji. The Bills defeated the New England Patriots that day.
In the image, Hamlin is sitting in a hospital bed holding his hands in the shape of a heart. There’s oxygen tubing on his face, and he’s flanked by family. He was discharged from the hospital a few days later, on Jan. 11, after a series of comprehensive medical evaluations and cardiac, neurological and vascular testing, ESPN reported.
We don’t know Hamlin’s precise care plan when he was in the hospital, but claims that this photo proves he is dead are absurd. He has since appeared in public; he is not dead.
We rate this post Pants on Fire!
