NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn't happen this week

Here’s a look at false and misleading claims circulating online as news about COVID-19 vaccines and uncertainty around coronavirus relief in the U.S. dominate headlines. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:

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No, a Tennessee nurse didn’t die after getting the vaccine

CLAIM: Tiffany Dover, a nurse manager in Chattanooga, Tennessee, who fainted after receiving her first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday, is now dead.

THE FACTS: Claims of Dover’s death have no basis in reality. She is alive and worked a shift at CHI Memorial Hospital on Monday, according to Lisa McCluskey, the hospital’s vice president of marketing communications. The claim emerged on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube over the weekend following videos that showed the nurse fainting on Dec. 17 several minutes after receiving the vaccine. It also appeared on Reddit, on a subreddit devoted to conspiracy theories, and on a website claiming to show obituaries of deceased people. Some posts used screenshots of Dover’s Facebook and Instagram accounts to claim she must be dead because she hadn’t posted in several days. Others shared screenshots from a public records website, suggesting the appearance of Dover’s name in search results somehow indicated she had died. These claims are bogus, McCluskey confirmed to The Associated Press. Dover told reporters after the fainting episode that she has a condition that can cause her to faint when she feels pain. “It’s common for me,” she told reporters. “I feel fine now.” In the days since then, CHI Memorial Hospital has confirmed Dover is doing well, sharing multiple tweets and a video of the nurse posing with colleagues on Monday afternoon. The CDC offers guidance...