Do you have any direct source for that statistic? The article that you've linked to is the Babylon Bee -- a site best known for their satire and fake articles -- lifting some infographics from an (uncited) article in the Daily Mail. Neither of these sources inspires confidence.

What about this one? https://www.gov.uk/government/news/alcoholic-liver-deaths-in...

That actually says something subtly different than what the other article was claiming. Not only does it point to the pandemic as a whole as a cause rather than lockdowns in particular, as the Babylon Bee article did, but it suggests that the most problematic changes in behavior were increases in drinking among people who were already heavy drinkers, not people "becoming alcoholics" who didn't previously have a drinking problem.

Sorry I saw this circulate a few days ago and linked the first thing I found on DDG.

I have no reason to think it's fake news.

> I have no reason to think it's fake news.

Very sound logic (/s)! With this sort of reasoning people invaded the Capitol on January 6th, because they were certain their country was about to be taken over by a Chinese-backed coup. Guess what, they also think what they heard was legitimate, and they think their reasoning work(ed) perfectly fine.

Everything in Babylon Bee is 100% satire and fake. It's used as a fake news source by people wanting to spread misinformation.

But the running joke is that it often turns out becoming true. That's why they spun off NotTheBee to do real news. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/alcoholic-liver-deaths-in...

I'm always amazed when people try and use The Bee as a legit source of misinformation. They make no bones that they're a satire site.

Folks gotta be pretty gullible to not see that.

Ref this

> Sorry I saw this circulate a few days ago and linked the first thing I found on DDG. > I have no reason to think it's fake news.

I think the expectation is that you should have a reason to think that it's not fake news before spreading it.

> ... https://notthebee.com/article/nearly-1-million-more-brits-ad...

This is very clearly a link to a satirical comedy site (in the same category as The Onion).

Actually, notthebee.com is very clearly not babylonbee.com "Not the Bee is a humor-based news, opinion, and entertainment site from the creators of The Babylon Bee and Disrn. Like the name suggests, it'll feature some absurd and hilarious (but real) news that seems like it should definitely be satire."[0]

That link that apparently got @jmnicolas flagged, actually does cite an external source[1] which says, "the alcohol-related death rate increasing by 20 per cent in 2020 to the highest level since records began.[...] PHE data showed there were 6,893 deaths blamed on alcohol in 2020, compared to 5,819 in 2019 before the virus reached Britain."

(edit) This seems to be backed up by a gov.uk press release.[2](/edit)

NotTheBee definitely has a opinion/bias to their articles [3] but I don't think it deserves to be called "fake news."

[0]https://notthebee.com/article/welcome-to-not-the-bee [1]https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9884297/Covid-19-... [2] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/alcoholic-liver-deaths-in... [3]https://notthebee.com/article/check-out-all-these-crazy-cons...