A poster which appears to be from the government says people who have noticed “declining health” since their Covid-19 vaccine and who weren’t made aware of the risks are entitled to compensation of £120,000.
The poster is not an official government one. It links to the genuine vaccine damage payment scheme, but that’s for people severely disabled by certain vaccines (including those for Covid-19).
A post on Facebook shows what looks like a government poster, which says “Have you noticed your health declining since receiving the Covid-19 injection? If you weren’t made fully aware of the risks from the Covid-19 vaccines, you are entitled to compensation of £120,000”.
While neither the Facebook post nor the image explicitly state that this is a government-produced poster, it is strongly implied. The poster is stamped with “HM Government” branding and a Gov.uk ‘crown’ logo, while the accompanying caption says: “It appears that the corrupt gangsters in Westminster are offering £120,000 of confidence, faith and belief to those who have suffered GBH after taking part in their live experiment.”
The Department for Health and Social Care has confirmed to Full Fact that this isn’t an official government poster. Clues to this include the fact that the Gov.uk logo doesn’t match the current branding for government departments and the low quality nature of the graphic overall.
However, the poster includes a link to a genuine government website.
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The website in question talks about the vaccine damage payment, which is an £120,000 tax-free payment that can be claimed by or on behalf of those who are “severely disabled as a result of a vaccination against certain diseases”. These diseases include Covid-19.
So although the government is not advertising the vaccine damage payment scheme using this poster or the phrasing in it, the poster points to a genuine scheme.
However, eligibility for the scheme is more limited than the poster suggests. People will not be considered eligible simply on the grounds that they have noticed their “health declining” since being vaccinated and “weren’t made fully aware of the health risks from the Covid-19 vaccines”, as the poster claims.
While there is a very small risk of serious illness following vaccination with a Covid-19 vaccine, they provide good protection against hospitalisation and death from the disease, and reduce the risk of long-term symptoms, though their effectiveness wanes over time.
And it’s important to note the vaccine damage payment scheme existed long before Covid-19 vaccines.
On 2 March 2022, health minister Maria Caulfield said: “We have not made any payments in relation to the Covid vaccine, but we are working at pace through all applications to the scheme.”
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as partly false because the poster is not official, and while the scheme it links to is genuine, it has more limited eligibility than the poster suggests.
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