COVID-19 Fact and Fiction #21

The world is dealing with an unprecedented health crisis caused by a new virus. With new insights in the way COVID19 spreads, in the way the virus behaves and in the way to deal with the pandemic every day, it is now more important than ever to safeguard the information we share is accurate and fact-based. We have to inoculate ourselves against the fake news and misinformation that infect our newsfeeds and timelines at this crucial moment by fact-checking.

For the duration of the pandemic, I will try to give you an overview of the main issues in CoronaCheck, an Australian email newsletter with the latest from around the world concerning the coronavirus, but now appear only once a week.*

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CLIVE PALMER’S COMPARES COVID-19 WITH HEPATITIS B

Mr Palmer has launched legal action against the West Australian Government’s border closure. (AAP: Jono Searle)

Remember Trump wannabe, mining magnate and former federal MP Clive Palmer from COVID-19 Fact and Fiction #3 and COVID-19 Fact and Fiction #9? This millionaire with political ambitions shares many characteristics with the American president, one of which is working very hard at his personal advancement at the cost of others.

In May, Mr Palmer was denied entry to the state after the McGowan Government shut Western Australia’s borders the previous month to all but those deemed essential travellers. He had wanted to come to WA for a series of business and political meetings but WA police commissioner Chris Dawson did not grant him an exemption to enter the state.

Mr Palmer then lodged a writ against the decision in the High Court, claiming closing the WA border was an unconstitutional “act of stupidity”.  As his case against WA’s coronavirus border closures headed to the Federal Court this week, Mr Palmer took to social media to attack WA Premier Mark McGowan.

“Mark ‘The Menace’ McGowan knows the mortality rate for West Australians hasn’t increased because of COVID-19 yet he continues to mislead the people of WA for political grandstanding,” Mr Palmer, who is currently facing fraud charges over his 2013 election campaign, said.
This must sound terribly familiar to PP readers.

“There are other highly contagious viruses, for example Hepatitis B, which result in thousands of deaths every year. COVID-19 has claimed very few lives in WA, yet has led to unprecedented border closures and devastation to the economy.”

However, the comparison of COVID-19 to hepatitis B is not valid.

• The blood-borne disease does not cause thousands of deaths every year, at least not in Australia. According to the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, there were an estimated 435 deaths attributable to chronic hepatitis B in Australia in 2018. Additionally, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare says acute hepatitis B was responsible for 279 deaths in Australia between 1997 and 2016.
• Josh Davis, a senior principal research fellow at the Menzies School of Health Research and former president of the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases, told Fact Check that comparing deaths from hepatitis B and COVID-19 was “ridiculous” because the two diseases spread in very different ways, with hepatitis spread through blood and other bodily fluids (through sexual contact, mother to child transmission or shared injecting equipment) rather than via respiratory droplets as in the case of COVID-19.
• “It’s completely safe to hug, kiss, share food etc with an HBV-infected person,” Professor Davis said in an email. “State borders are completely irrelevant.”
• Hepatitis B causes a low-grade infection over decades and that around 80 per cent of people do not end up with health problems as a result of the infection.
• “The only thing [hepatitis B and COVID-19] have in common is that they are both caused by viruses. But the viruses are no more closely genetically related to each other than a human is to a fish.”
• And most importantly, there’s a vaccine for hepatitis B, first introduced in 1983. Australian year 7 students have been immunised for the disease since 1998, while newborn babies have received the vaccine since 2000.

Mr Palmer did not respond to a request for comment before publication.

 

MADONNA’S INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT FLAGGED FOR SPREADING MISINFORMATION

Popstar Madonna has been censured by Instagram after sharing a video about a coronavirus conspiracy theory to her 15 million followers. The singer claimed In her post that a vaccine for Covid-19 had already been found but was being hidden to “let the rich get richer”.

Instagram blurred out the video with a caption saying: “False Information” and directed users to a page debunking the claims in the video, noting there is no coronavirus vaccine.

The video in question showed a group called America’s Frontline Doctors speaking outside the US Supreme Court building at an event organised by Tea Party Patriots Action.

In the clip, Dr Stella Immanuel, a doctor from Houston, said she had successfully treated 350 coronavirus patients “and counting” with hydroxychloroquine.

The video was later deleted from Madonna’s Instagram page, but not before fans protested at her decision to share the post.

 

FROM WASHINGTON, D.C.

By the time Madonna posted the video on Instagram of a group of doctors claiming during a press conference in Washington that hydroxychloroquine, zinc and a drug known as Zithromax can cure COVID-19, it had gone viral, with US President Donald Trump retweeting it multiple times.

Fact Check has found that the video has been shared dozens of times in Australian Facebook groups popular with conspiracy theorists, despite attempts by social media platforms to remove the video.

According to PolitiFact, the cure claims made by one doctor in the clip, Stella Immanuel, are false, and there is no known cure for COVID-19. “In spite of Immanuel’s anecdotal evidence, hydroxychloroquine alone or in combination with other drugs is not a proven treatment (or cure) for COVID-19,” the fact-checkers concluded. “While some studies have found that the drug could help alleviate symptoms associated with COVID-19, the research is not conclusive.”

Meanwhile, The Washington Post found that Dr Immanuel was no stranger to making outlandish declarations, once claiming that gynaecological conditions such as endometriosis, infertility, miscarriages and STIs are caused by “sex with demons that takes place in dreams” and are ‘evil deposits from the spirit husband’.

In short, the lady is a quack and yet is someone Trump calls ‘impressive’.

Things that don’t cure and/or prevent COVID-19

#37: Steroids used in asthma inhalers
“There is no evidence on benefits or harms of inhaled steroids in COVID-19.” – European Respiratory Journal

 

*The facts in this article are derived from the Australian RMIT ABC Fact Check newsletters which in turn draw on their own resources and those of their colleagues within the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), of which RMIT ABC Fact Check is a member.

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