The Blaze reports that Dr. Mary Basset, New York’s acting health commissioner, admitted she exaggerated the number of COVID hospitalizations of children in order to cause parents to vaccinate their children.

It surfaced after her department issued an alert that there was a surge in hospitalizations of children because of Omicron in New York. This included nearly a 400% increase in New York City.

However, it quickly fell apart when people questioned its vague wording and lack of statistics.

The Blaze explains what happened next:

In a press conference Monday alongside Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, Bassett — who came down with the virus last week despite being fully vaccinated against it — effectively acknowledged that the state health department misleadingly framed the numbers to scare parents.

“The numbers that we gave on pediatric admissions weren’t intended to make it seem that children were having an epidemic of infection, these were small numbers,” Bassett admitted regarding the alert. “That was based on 50 hospitalizations, and I’ve now given you some larger numbers, but they’re still small numbers.”

READ: Video: NY health commissioner admits using overblown claims about child COVID hospitalizations to scare parents into vaccinating their kids

Sorry to bust up the manipulation ploy. pic.twitter.com/y9msS5K3sq

— Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) December 29, 2021

Of course, the mainstream media was quick to play the fear card:

Concerns around pediatric COVID hospitalizations are growing, especially in the city; admissions among NYC kids are up 395% since the week of Dec. 5 vs. a 163% increase statewide.https://t.co/6rVg6QmTCG

— NBC New York (@NBCNewYork) December 29, 2021

Fauci’s admission

Even the US’s senior medical officer, Anthony Fauci, admitted that the youth hospitalization stats for COVID includes those who were hospitalized for other issues and later tested positive for COVID. READ: Fauci points out that many of the kids included in count of COVID-19 hospitalizations actually tested positive after being hospitalized for another reason

The most flagrant abuse of the truth?

But perhaps the most flagrant abuse of the truth involved Deena Hinshaw, the senior medical officer for the Canadian province of Alberta, who terrorized parents by talking about a 14-year-old boy who died from COVID. She was forced to apologize after the boy’s sister called Hinshaw out, stating her brother had died from stage 4 brain cancer. He had died with COVID, not because of COVID. READ: Dr. Deena Hinshaw apologizes and says Alberta teen didn’t actually die from COVID

They say the first casualty in any war is ‘THE TRUTH!’