COVID-19 Fact and Fiction #8

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.*

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WORLD HEALTH ACCORDING TO ANTI-VAXXERS

A tweet, believed to have been posted by a user named VaccineTruths on May 3, contains a screenshot of a page from the website WorldHealth.net and alleges that a 2017 study showed that people who had received a flu vaccine would be the “first to die” in a global pandemic. The page on the website appears to have been deleted, but an archived version exists.

WorldHealth.net Internet has been included NewsGuard’s list of websites publishing false coronavirus information the site “violates basic standards of credibility and transparency”.

The text screenshot contains comes from an article headlined “BOMBSHELL: Flu Shots Scientifically Proven to Weaken Immune Response in Subsequent Years”, which cites a 2017 study conducted by Lisa Christian of the Ohio State Medical Centre. This study, however, looked into the effect of flu vaccinations on pregnant women and newborns and makes no mention of a person’s likelihood of dying in a pandemic.

According to RMIT Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow Kylie Quinn, who has researched vaccines, there was no evidence in the paper that a flu vaccine made people more susceptible to influenza.

In general, there was no evidence at all that people who had received flu shots would be the first to die in a pandemic. Dr Quinn said that she knew of no credible evidence to support other claims contained in the post, such as people who received a flu jab in 2008 “experienced a 250 per cent increase in influenza infections in subsequent years”.

 

THAT BILL GATES AGAIN

Image source: Snopes

More misinformation, or should we say disinformation, regarding Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, appeared as a photo, shared on social media, which showed a crop circle in the UK featuring the Microsoft logo.

“Amazing crop circle arrives overnight near Stonehenge, UK… Think they are trying to tell us something…? Microsoft Bill Gates made the Corona Virus?” one tweet featuring the photo reads.

But fact-checkers at Snopes were able to track down the original image of a 2004 crop circle altered to feature the Microsoft logo.

 

ANOTHER WRITER WRONGLY ATTRIBUTED

Image source: Facebook

A passage of text quoting an imaginary exchange between Satan and Jesus has been misattributed to the Chronicles of Narnia author C.S. Lewis, written supposedly during WWII, circa 1942.

The text quotes Satan as saying he will “shut down business, schools, places of worship, and sport events” and “cause economic turmoil”, while Jesus retorts: “I will bring together neighbours [and] restore the family unit.” Jesus continues: “I will help people slow down their lives and appreciate what really matters.”

Reuters found the real author to be a social media user named Heidi May, who told the fact-checkers she wrote the post on a day she was feeling overwhelmed in early March.

 

INTERNATIONAL CORONAVIRUS FACT-CHECKING

The International Fact-Checking Network’s database of coronavirus fact checks, created to combat misinformation about the virus, has already hit a milestone 5,000 fact checks.

The five most popular fact checks:

1. An investigation by Spanish Maldita.es into a WhatsApp message claiming that Pope Francis had instructed believers to put a white cloth on their doorsteps to protect them from the plague. They found no evidence of any such advice in the Pope’s public appearances and statements.
2. The same Spanish outlet also debunked several of the coronavirus-related claims made by disgraced virologist Judy Mikovits in the viral video “Plandemic”, as noted in COVID-19 Fact and Fiction #6
3. The Mexican fact-checking network Animal Politico looked into claims that COVID-19 is a thrombosis which should be treated with antibiotics. They found that while some Italian researchers found pulmonary thrombosis to be linked to the coronavirus, the virus was essentially a respiratory illness, and was not treatable with antibiotics.
4. In India, FactCrescendo debunked a video which purported to show bodies of coronavirus victims being thrown into the sea. The video actually showed the bodies of African migrants who had been trying to get to Europe washed ashore in Libya in 2014.
5. Bothes and India Today debunked the claim that Harvard Professor Charles Lieber was arrested for creating the coronavirus and selling it to China. Lieber was certainly arrested but in reality, charged with concealing a foreign conflict of interest from investigators according to a US Justice Department statement.

 

SAFE TO FLY

Reuters: Kham

In the US, with some states are relaxing lockdown rules and summer holidays approach, the CEO of Southwest Airlines claimed in an appearance on CBS that an aeroplane is “as safe as an environment as you’re going to find”.

Fact-checkers at PolitiFact noted that planes had air ventilation systems that circulate purified air and that airlines were taking substantial steps to protect travellers. Experts said flying would be relatively safe as long as everyone onboard wore masks and wiped down surfaces but also noted passengers would be unable to maintain distance from each other inside the aircraft.

There would still be risks despite protective measures being taken by the airlines. “Is an airplane potentially carrying an infectious passenger safer than your own home, where the only contact with a stranger you have is grabbing the takeout dinner order left on your porch by a delivery person?” PolitiFact posed. “Clearly not.”

 

FROM WASHINGTON, D.C.

Barack Obama has criticised his successor, calling President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic “an absolute chaotic disaster“.

The critique led Mr Trump to retweet a claim that “Barack Hussain Obama is the first Ex-President to ever speak against his successor, which was [a] long tradition of decorum and decency.”

He tagged the post: “He got caught, OBAMAGATE!”

But PolitiFact found that, in fact, a long line of former presidents had offered their successors “improvement suggestions”.

Herbert Hoover, for example, railed against Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and liberalism “from the time he left office in 1933 until his death in the mid-1960s”. Historians contacted by PolitiFact also pointed out that Jimmy Carter’s policies were ridiculed by predecessor Gerald Ford.

“Carter carried on the tradition. In November 1982, he said President Ronald Reagan had undermined confidence in America’s global leadership,” PolitiFact noted.

 

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

#24: Palm oil

“No, palm oil will not stop the coronavirus.” – Africa Check

 

*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.