The Associated Press reported that Kaiser found 60 percent of Americans agree that the government has exaggerated the number of COVID deaths or don’t know whether it is true.

The study polled Americans on the seven most widely spread falsehoods about the virus and pandemic as well as their most trusted news network.

Other untrue statements the study investigated include whether the government is hiding reports of deaths caused by vaccines, the vaccine causing infertility, the vaccine containing a microchip and the vaccine being able to change DNA.

The study also found a correlation between which news network participants view and their likelihood of believing the false statements. Of the participants who said their most trusted network was Fox News, Newsmax or One America Network News, 36 to 46 percent believed in four or more of the statements. Among people who favored CNN, NPR or MSNBC, 11 to 16 percent believed in four or more.

Liz Hamel, vice president and director of public opinion and survey research at Kaiser, spoke to the AP on this divide.

“It may be because the people who are self-selecting these organizations believe [the misinformation] going in,” Hamel said.

For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below.

A sharp partisan divide on trust in news outlets has been evident for years, and Kaiser said this extends to COVID-19 news. Kaiser found, for example, that 65 percent of Democrats say they believe what they hear about COVID-19 on CNN, while only 17 percent of Republicans do. Roughly half of Republicans believe what they hear about the coronavirus on Fox, while only 18 percent of Democrats do.

The extent to which COVID-19 has become a political battleground is evident nearly every day. Most recently, some Republicans complained about “government propaganda” after the Sesame Street Muppet Big Bird tweeted about getting vaccinated.

A Fox News spokeswoman would not comment directly on Kaiser’s findings on Tuesday, but pointed to several network personalities who have spoken out in favor of getting vaccinated. Most recently it was Neil Cavuto, a multiple sclerosis sufferer who came down with the disease but had a mild case because he was vaccinated. He pleaded with viewers to get the shot: “Life is too short to be an ass,” he said.

Yet vaccine and mandate skepticism has been a steady drumbeat on several Fox shows.

Newsmax issued a statement that the network “strongly supports the COVID vaccine, has encouraged its viewers to get the vaccine and has on air only medical experts that support the vaccine.”

The company last week took its White House correspondent, Emerald Robinson, off the air for an investigation after she tweeted: “Dear Christians: The vaccines contain a bioluminescent marker called Luciferase so that you can be tracked.” She remained grounded on Tuesday.

Hamel said Kaiser’s findings on attitudes of people who have not been vaccinated illustrate a real challenge faced by public health authorities. Their distrust of COVID-19 news ran wide and deep: the highest percentage of unvaccinated people who said they trusted what an outlet said on the topic was the 30 percent who cited Fox.

“The one thing I did not realize going in was how little trust there was across news sources among unvaccinated people,” she said.

Among social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter, the trust numbers were particularly small. But Hamel said that doesn’t mean social media hasn’t had a big impact in spreading stories that sow doubt about the vaccines.

Kaiser’s study was conducted between October 14 and 24 in a random telephone sample of 1,519 American adults.