Debunked – Page 2 – Politics Plus

COVID-19 Fact and Fiction #20

Posted by Lona Goudswaard at 1:54 am Politics

Jul 242020

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.*

As I’ve mentioned last week, Melbourne, Victoria, had seen a surge in new cases which has worsened over the past week. This outbreak has brought the coronavirus back in the political arena, setting up states with either left-wing Labor or right-wing Liberal/National Coalition governments against each other in their attempt to deal with the spread of the virus beyond Victoria’s borders.

RMIT ABC Fact Check has dedicated most of this week’s coronavirus fact-checking to Australia. They’ve focussed in particular on the Black Lives Matter protest’s supposed links to a surge in coronavirus cases in Victoria because of the court hearing over a protest planned for Sydney next week, and the renewed media coverage of a similar rally held in Melbourne back in June.

I’ve posted the whole section dedicated to this topic, with annotations where Australian matters needed to be explained both for the sake of clarity and because similar reports are coming in from the US but have added my own pictures.

EXPLAINING THE BLACK LIVES MATTER ‘LINKS’ TO MELBOURNE’S CORONAVIRUS SURGE

Suggestions of a link between a Black Lives Matter rally held in Melbourne on June 6 and an outbreak of coronavirus cases in public housing towers continue to spread, with NSW (Liberal/National Coalition government) Police Commissioner Mick Fuller this week adding fuel to the fire.

Speaking on Sydney radio station 2GB before a court hearing on a Black Lives Matter protest planned for Sydney next week, Commissioner Fuller said that based on “some pretty good intelligence out of Victoria” he knew “how dangerous these protests can be in terms of health”.

“From our perspective it was obviously big numbers in Victoria (Labor government), a number of people who came to the protest were living in those vertical towers* so that certainly is enough for me.”

But in a statement to the ABC last week, the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) said that of the six protesters who subsequently tested positive to COVID-19, none were known to live in a “major public housing complex”*.

Commissioner Fuller’s remarks come in the wake of a report in The Australian (major right-wing newspaper) that Victorian health authorities had “confirmed a link between two COVID-19 cases in people who attended the Black Lives Matter protest and the cluster of at least 242 cases in public housing towers in the city’s inner northwest”.

“While the confirmation stops short of establishing the protest as a cause of the public housing megacluster, it demonstrates clear links between the mass gathering, attendees who tested positive, and the state’s largest COVID-19 cluster to date,” The Australian said.

According to the report, two Northland H&M employees who tested positive for COVID-19 attended the protests. These workers formed part of a larger cluster of coronavirus cases initially named as the H&M cluster but later reclassified as the North Melbourne family cluster.

It is the North Melbourne family cluster which the DHHS said was linked to the outbreak in the North Melbourne housing tower.

“Cases linked to the North Melbourne towers have links to other cases across Melbourne, including the North Melbourne family outbreak,” The Australian quotes a DHHS spokesman as saying.

“It is not clear which direction the virus was transmitted in. In many cases, we will never know for sure how large clusters began and the order in which the virus spread.”

The Australian’s report prompted former Victorian opposition leader Matthew Guy to suggest Fact-check issue a correction on a past CoronaCheck newsletter, published in June, which queried the evidence for assertions about links between the protests and the surge in cases.

“[The DHHS] continues to report that the current burst of cases does not stem from the rally,” Fact-check said at the time.

“They have said that while one protester “may have been infectious at the rally”, two others who have since tested positive for COVID-19 were not infectious at the rally, nor is there evidence they contracted the virus at the rally.”

The DHHS statement last week maintains that there is “no evidence to suggest” any person contracted COVID-19 at the protest.

The report in The Australian, as well as similar reports from other news sites, were shared widely, including by Senator Pauline Hanson (leader of right-wing populist One Nation party), Victorian federal Liberal MP Jason Wood and Avi Yemini, a far-right figure with 115,000 Twitter followers.

Fact-check found no evidence that a follow up report from The Australian, which clarified that the DHHS said there was no evidence that the six protesters who had tested positive for COVID-19 had acquired the virus at the rally, was shared by Senator Hanson or Mr Wood. Mr Yemini dismissed the report in a tweet.

* “Those vertical towers” or “major public housing complex” refer to several large high-rise buildings which were put in total lockdown after an outbreak of COVID-19 was reported there. These buildings house people with low income, a large diversity of cultural backgrounds and many with immigrant/asylum-seeker status.

OUTDATED ADVICE MASKING THE FACTS

The surge in coronavirus cases in Victoria has led its government to announce that face coverings would be mandatory for residents of lockdown areas but commentators and social media activists are using out-of-date advice on the use of masks to peddle misinformation on mask use.
In a document published over three months ago, the World Health Organisation stated that “the wide use of masks by healthy people in the community setting is not supported by current evidence”. This advice was the reason for Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt to question whether there was any medical basis to the decision to make masks mandatory.

However, new advice published by the organisation in June, says that masks should be worn by the general population where there is widespread community transmission or where physical distancing cannot be adhered to, such as on public transport or in “specific working conditions”.

Speaking to Seven News, infectious diseases physician and microbiologist Peter Collignon said there was enough community spread in Melbourne to justify mandatory masks. “Whenever you’ve got a lot of community transmission — and Melbourne seems to be in that situation at the moment — wearing masks makes a difference,” Professor Collignon said.

Nevertheless, Facebook groups popular with conspiracy theorists have used misinterpreted Federal Government advice, as well as months-old news reports, to advocate against mandatory mask-wearing.

FROM WASHINGTON, D.C.

When he resumed his regular coronavirus press briefing, President Trump also tried to blame Black Lives Matter protests for the coronavirus surge.

“There are likely a number of causes for the spike in infections,” he said. “Cases started to rise among young Americans shortly after demonstrations, which you know very well about, which presumably triggered a broader relaxation of mitigation efforts nationwide.”

The data suggests that they weren’t. According to the Washington Post, a working paper released last month by the National Bureau of Economic Research found “no evidence that urban protests reignited COVID-19 case growth during the more than three weeks following protest onset.” Nor are the states where cases surged the most ones in which the largest protests occurred.

The Guardian took it one step further and noted that “Public health experts say there is little evidence that the protests spread Covid-19 in New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, Washington or other cities. They took place outdoors, where the virus spreads less easily, and most participants wore face masks, which Trump has conceded is an effective preventive measure.”

“Dhaval Dave, the lead author of a study at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts, told the Associated Press that in many cities, the protests [ironicallyP seemed to lead to a net increase in physical distancing, as more people who did not protest decided to stay off the streets.”

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

#36: Burning Sage
“Though burning some plants has been scientifically shown to eliminate airborne bacterium, there is inconclusive evidence to suggest that burning sage – or “smudging” – is capable of purifying the air in confined spaces.” – Snopes

*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.

COVID-19 Fact and Fiction #19

Posted by Lona Goudswaard at 12:54 am Politics

Jul 172020

Melbourne, Australia, has seen a surge in new cases in the past couple of weeks which have led to lockdowns of public-housing flats, a tightening of restrictions in the rest of the city and for the first time in Australia the advice to people to wear face masks when in public. Time for Australian fact-checkers to have a good look at the use of masks to control the spread of the virus.

DO MASKS WORK?

“Studies have recently shown that, even when factoring in imperfections and human error, wearing face masks can reduce transmission of coronavirus by around 60 per cent,” reads a press release outlining the new and unprecedented advice.

Independent Senator for Tasmania Jacqui Lambie cited a different figure when speaking on the Today Show. “Should we be wearing face masks? They’re supposed to be 70 per cent reliable,” she said.

And speaking on 3AW, Tony Blakely, an epidemiologist and public health medicine specialist at the University of Melbourne, said masks reduced the risk of coronavirus transmission by “about 80 per cent”.

So what’s the correct figure? Well, all three close enough.

A systematic review, commissioned by the World Health Organisation and published in The Lancet last month, looked at a large number of observational studies to study the extent to which physical distancing, face masks and eye protection prevent the spread of COVID-19. The review found masks reduced the risk of spread by 67 per cent, while a close-fitting protective device such as an N95 respiratory mask reduced it by more than 95 per cent.

“The N95 respirators are much better but the surgical masks and even a 12-layered cloth mask does give you good protection as well,” said Raina MacIntyre MacIntrye, infectious diseases expert and head of the biosecurity research program at the Kirby Institute when she spoke to the ABC’s Health Report. She added before adding that masks protected with equal effect people in the community as well as in a healthcare setting.

However, speaking to Fact-check, Professor Blakely said there was a possibility his suggested figure of “about 80 per cent” protection was an overestimate, given the nature of the Lancet’s review. It looked at observational studies rather than randomised trials which would take into account the potential for correlated confounders, such as the fact that people who wore health masks were possibly more health-conscious than those who don’t.

Yet, Professor Blakely noted that an 85 per cent reduction is too large an effect to be purely due to correlated confounders.” According to him, mask-wearing was likely to reduce the risk of coronavirus spread by between 50 per cent and 80 per cent, which he said would have enough of an effect to “make a sizeable difference”.

Some experts, however, have questioned the Lancet review, cautioning against treating masks as a “magic ingredient”.

Paul Glasziou, the director of the Institute for Evidenced-Based Care at Bond University, told The Age he thinks the Lancet study is seriously flawed, again because “It’s all based on observational evidence. And they did not adjust for the confounding.“

Professor Glasziou also warned that masks could create a false sense of security, and were not the “magic ingredient” that was going to stop the pandemic, a notion echoed by Professor MacIntyre. “The bottom line is no intervention gives you 100 per cent protection. You have to use them in combination to reduce the risk and, until the time that we can vaccinate people, you really have to use these interventions in combination.”

MASKS FACT & FICTION

There’s a lot of disinformation about masks about that needs to be debunked

To start with, those small strips of metal in some face masks that can be moulded to the shape of the wearer’s nose are not 5G antennas, as reported by Reuters. Too bad, masks won’t stream your Netflix any faster.

Reuters also debunked a claim circulating on social media that two-tone surgical masks should be worn coloured side facing out if you are sick and white side facing out if you are healthy. That’s incorrect. The coloured side, usually blue, should always face out.

If people believe that bunk, then there are a lot of sick people out there who shouldn’t be out there at all but isolating themselves.

Meanwhile, Lead Stories looked into a video purporting to show a test that found wearing a mask causes oxygen levels to drop into a so-called “danger zone”.

As the fact-checkers point out, when the sensor used in the test is put under people’s faces while breathing out, it will naturally detect lower oxygen levels. That’s because the air we breathe in is about 21 per cent oxygen, while the air we breathe out is 16 per cent oxygen. Further, the manufacturer of the gadget seen in the video told Lead Stories that the test was flawed and that the sensor had been used incorrectly.

Finally, claims that New York hospitals were reporting thousands of lung infections caused by the use of face masks are false, according to PolitiFact. “New York hospitals didn’t report this, PolitiFact said. “There’s no evidence wearing a face mask properly causes fungal lung infections.”

FROM WASHINGTON, D.C.

Coronavirus cases continue to surge in the US as the country opens back up to get life, and especially the economy, back to some sort of normal. Schools, however, have remained shut and, with the start of the new school year drawing closer, the debate over whether they should open as planned has become heated.

President Donald Trump is on the side of reopening and is threatening to cut federal funding to schools in states where governors choose to keep them closed.

But fact-checkers at CNN found that Mr Trump is unable to cut unilaterally federal funding to schools, though he could restrict recent pandemic relief funding and refuse to sign future legislation for grants and bailouts.

Meanwhile, despite claims to the contrary, Mr Trump’s Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, never said that “only 0.02 per cent of children” were likely to die if schools were reopened, according to USA Today, Snopes and Lead Stories. “Our analysis of DeVos’ public appearances found no evidence to show she made the comment,” fact-checkers at Snopes noted.

Also, the Associated Press’s fact-check team called out the Trump administration for repeatedly assuring the public that schools are safe and that children do not spread the virus, despite there being no certainty behind either statement.

In one example, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany claimed the director of the US Centers for Disease Control had said “children are not spreading” COVID-19. AP clarified that what the director had really said was that there was no evidence that children were “driving” infections, and that experts had not yet ruled out the possibility that children could spread the virus to adults.

PolitiFact also found that a claim made by Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the coronavirus poses “virtually zero threat” to children and most teachers was mostly false. “Carlson’s language paints a black-and-white picture for children and teachers between death and full recovery,” the fact-checkers said. “Other outcomes — including hospitalisation — have occurred and are also harmful.”

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

#33: Vaccines against pneumonia
“Vaccines against pneumonia, such as pneumococcal vaccine and Haemophilus influenza type B (Hib) vaccine, do not provide protection against the new coronavirus.” ⁠— World Health Organisation

COVID-19 Fact and Fiction #18

Posted by Lona Goudswaard at 2:15 am Politics

Jul 102020

Again, there seems to be little fact-checking done this week; not because there is less misinformation, disinformation or even malinformation about, I think, but because it loses in strength every time it looks like it repeats itself within a small window of time. Fact-checkers are trying to avoid that their readers get bored or think it an actual repeat and skip it, l expect and not giving up hope that their efforts to debunk are having results.

Most of what was reported this week was Australian based again, but some items are of interest elsewhere and are included in this overview.

HAS THE CSIRO’S PANDEMIC PREPAREDNESS BEEN HAMPERED BY FUNDING CUTS?

As efforts to develop a coronavirus vaccine continue, Australian Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese has used a National Press Club address to call for better pandemic preparedness.

Mr Albanese said the Coalition Government’s first budget had cut $110 million from science funding and “hollowed out” the nation’s lead scientific agency, the CSIRO, one on the frontline in the groups responding to the coronavirus that Australia was “now counting on” to develop a COVID-19 vaccine.

Its recent work includes a collaboration with the University of Queensland to develop a vaccine based on so-called “molecular clamp” technology. The agency is also conducting pre-clinical trials for two separate vaccines.

However, Dr Trevor Drew recently told the ABC’s Four Corners program that cuts in 2014 had “impacted on the research capability” of the Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness, the CSIRO’s high-containment facility for studying deadly viruses, of which he was director.

Fact-check took a look at the 2014-15 budget papers, which show the newly-elected Abbott government had earmarked $111.4 million in “reduced funding” for the CSIRO over the four years from 2014-15. The CSIRO’s annual reports confirm the agency lost $60 million in nominal government revenue in the first two budget years alone.

In the year after the 2014-15 budget, the agency shed 11 per cent of its research staff and 12 per cent of its total workforce, not counting contractors. Some jobs have since returned but, five years on, there remained 215 fewer research staff than before the Coalition took office.

But while Mr Albanese linked the funding cuts to the agency’s role in developing a coronavirus vaccine, a CSIRO spokesman implied that the cuts had resulted in a reorganisation in “areas related to vaccine development and pandemic preparedness”, where “[a]s part of the creation of our new strategy in 2015, CSIRO brought together experts from a range of backgrounds to build a ‘one health’ model that could respond to a new disease threat in multiple ways, from vaccine development and medical supply production to data modelling and environmental science.”

“As a result, our overall capability in pandemic preparedness has expanded, including an increase in research staff working on human diseases.” In short, the cuts resulted in a far more efficient organisation.

The current pandemic has also led the Morrison Government to put aside $222 million to upgrade the CSIRO’s ageing containment facility and a further $66 million for future pandemic planning and research in a bid to develop a vaccine and treatments for COVID-19.

WHY WE NEED TO BE WARY OF THE DATA

COVID-19 is evidently impacting countries to varying degrees. Differences in preparedness, population density and the quality of national healthcare systems, as well as in the how governments respond to the pandemic, have led to marked differences in outcomes.

So stark is the contrast that, had Australia’s coronavirus path tracked similarly to Belgium’s, the nation would have recorded more than 21,000 deaths – more than 200 times its current toll of 104.

The figures are extrapolations based on data that tracks the number of coronavirus deaths per million of population.

While experts caution that variables in the way countries compile their statistics and in their definitions, as well as variations in demographics and cultural norms, make for inexact comparisons, deaths-per-million gives a clearer snapshot of how severely the coronavirus is impacting different jurisdictions.

For example, the US tops the global death count with around 130,000 fatalities, with Brazil having swiftly climbed to second place (60,000). But, as bleak as those figures are, they translate to 388 and 284 deaths per million of the population respectively, ranking both countries behind Belgium, the UK, Spain, Italy, Sweden and France.

Image source: Our World in Data

Again caution is called for. Belgium’s figures include suspected – as well as confirmed – coronavirus deaths in care homes, which is likely inflating the country’s toll. Also, figures are subject to sudden change as countries reassess definitions and revise their data, as was the case in China, where authorities revised upwards by 50 per cent coronavirus totals for the city of Wuhan when they realised that their case definition was so stringent.

Likewise, New York City; it added more than 3,700 deaths to its COVID-19 toll in one stroke after new guidance from US health authorities recommended taking into account “probable” and “presumed” coronavirus deaths even in the absence of testing.

Figures for some countries are also likely unreliable due to poor accounting or because, with healthcare systems overwhelmed, untold numbers of people have been left to die at home.

While the Swedish Government shared the global objective of flattening the coronavirus curve, the debate continues over the merits of its approach. Its 5,333 deaths to date (523 per million people) far exceed the per capita tolls of neighbouring Denmark (104 deaths per million), Finland (59) and Norway (47).

A QUICK PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

A viral Facebook post claims that police have issued a bulletin about door-knocking thieves who say to be part of a government initiative to distribute masks is false, according to fact-checkers at AFP Australia, Full Fact and Reuters in the UK, and PolitiFact in the US. The masks they hand out are supposedly laced with chemicals “which knocks you out cold and once you’re knocked out they proceed to rob you”.

In a statement provided to AFP, a Victoria Police spokesperson said the force was “unaware of any instances of this nature” occurring in Victoria. Other global fact-checkers were unable to find any such police bulletin.

FROM WASHINGTON, D.C.

The notion that COVID-19 very rarely leads to serious illness or death, a favourite argument of those wanting coronavirus restrictions eased or lifted, has been shared by US President Donald Trump when speaking on US Independence Day, July 4, and claiming that 99 per cent of coronavirus cases in the United States was “totally harmless“; a fact, he said, that was unique to the US.

But fact-checkers at PolitiFact, the Associated Press and FactCheck.org disputed this statement.

According to FactCheck.org, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that through to May 30, 14 per cent of coronavirus cases led to hospitalisation, and 2 per cent required intensive care. Meanwhile, PolitiFact estimated the case fatality rate for confirmed cases in the US to be at least 4.2 per cent. And while some experts do put the death rate around 1 per cent, that is not the same as the coronavirus being “totally harmless” in 99 per cent of cases.

“To cavalierly say that only 1 per cent of infections result in problems is wildly inaccurate,” Donald Thea, a professor of Global Health at Boston University told PolitiFact. “We are seeing reports of young people who have recovered from mild cases developing diabetes or blood clots and suffering from chronic fatigue, respiratory compromise, persistent fever or coming back with bacterial sepsis weeks later. There’s too many reports of other organ damage that hints that there are possible long term serious implications.”

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

COVID-19 Fact and Fiction #17

Posted by Lona Goudswaard at 10:19 pm Politics

Jul 022020

WHY FACT-CHECK?

As cases have continued to climb across Melbourne (in Victoria, Australia) doorknockers have targeted hotspot suburbs where community transmission is a concern, encouraging people to be tested.

Health Minister Jenny Mikakos said authorities had been “smashing targets for testing” with more than 164,000 people tested across Victoria and doorknockers reaching nearly 95,000 homes in just a few days,

But she said that more than 10,000 people had refused to be tested for a range of reasons, including that they may have already been swabbed.

She said officials were analysing the data for more clarity on their reasons. “It is concerning that the report that I have received is that some people believe coronavirus is a conspiracy or that it won’t impact on them.”

The statistics aren’t in yet, but it is worrying that people may believe unsubstantiated news and social-media myths and come to decisions based on these which could endanger their health and those around them and which could prevent the Victorian government from getting this outbreak under control. Apparently, fact-checking and countering online misinformation time and time again on social media is still very necessary as the following examples bear witness to.

THE ACCURACY OF COVID-19 TESTS

In one Facebook post spotted by Fact-check this week, a slick, shareable infographic posted by a newly-created Facebook page claims there is “no evidence” that COVID-19 tests used in Australia are accurate. The post, shared by Friends of Truth, also states they have not been safety tested and are “unapproved”.

A spokesman for the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) explained that there were two types of tests in Australia — PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests used to diagnose COVID-19 and serology (antibody) tests, used to provide historic information about a person’s exposure to the virus.

“[The PCR] test is very accurate and is the primary method of diagnosis of a COVID-19 infection. False negative or false positive results can occur, but this is rare.”

“All sponsors of COVID-19 test kits included in the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG) are required [to] provide evidence to the TGA to support the quality and performance of the tests,” the spokesman continued.

On the claim that tests hadn’t undergone safety checks, the spokesman said the TGA was undertaking a “post-market review” of serology tests, including independent testing by the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity. Furthermore, Australian laboratories accredited to undertake COVID-19 testing were subject to “strict regulatory requirements” and “participated regularly in quality assurance programs to ensure the nucleic acid and serology-based COVID-19 tests in use are of the highest quality for the Australian community”.

At the beginning of the pandemic some tests were subject to an “emergency exemption” limited to accredited pathology laboratories but as there now are sufficient tests included in the ARTG exemptions are no longer necessary.

DON’T TAKE FACEBOOK POLLS AT FACE VALUE

The Friends of Truth page also claims that a poll conducted by 2GB radio host Ben Fordham found that “79 per cent of Australians oppose a compulsory vaccination”; a claim which has been shared more than 1,400 times.

But that statistic is problematic at best as the poll in question was not conducted according to professional standards because the question, “Do you think a Coronavirus vaccine should be compulsory?” was posted on Facebook, where the “yes/no” poll attracting 53,000 responses.

Anne Kruger, Asia-Pacific Director of verification organisation First Draft, told RMIT ABC Fact-check that First Draft researchers had regularly observed groups and individuals targeting Facebook polls to manipulate results. “Followers are asked to ‘raid’ the polls and vote according to the groups’ desired outcome,” Ms Kruger said. “This underscores the lack of reliability from such polls for the public to make informed decisions.”

Fact-check found the poll was shared by celebrity chef and coronavirus conspiracy theorist Pete Evans, who encouraged his 1.5 million followers to answer “No”, and was also posted multiple times to the page of the conspiracy group “99% unite Main Group — it’s us or them”.

That made the poll “certainly not restricted to Australians,” she added. “We can see it was shared in public anti-vaccination and conspiracy theory groups in other countries as well, including the US, with members encouraged to vote ‘No’ to the question about the coronavirus vaccine.”

A further search by Michael Workman from the ABC’s Investigations Unit, connected with CrossCheck, found that Friends of Truth‘s website was registered to Ben Mitchell. On his Facebook page, musician Ben Mitchell posted a video in May stating that he had set up a Friends of Truth page on LBRY, a video, music and e-book sharing website.

HOW ABOUT THAT “SECOND WAVE”?

As Victoria battles a surge in coronavirus cases, the state’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer has sought to reassure the community that the uptick is not a “second wave”. But what does that mean? And can we expect a second wave eventually?

According to fact-checkers at USA Today, the concept of a “second wave” was first used as a metaphor during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, when the disease briefly abated during summer months before fatalities picked up again.

But medical historian Howard Markel told USA Today the disease may not have come in “waves” at all. “It may be that they were hiding from it and as more people came out they were exposed to it,” he said.

The fact-checkers found that a claim that all past pandemics had featured a second, more deadly wave was historically inaccurate and that there was “no rule in epidemiology” dictating that a pandemic involves increasingly severe waves of infection.

“In many instances, including the current COVID-19 pandemic, the concept of waves may not accurately describe the course of the pandemic,” they concluded. “Rather, the trajectory of the virus will largely be determined by the varied human responses to the new coronavirus.”

FROM WASHINGTON, D.C.

Let’s not look at Trump this time but at his deputy, Vice President Mike Pence and his attempts to downplay the COVID-19 outbreak in the US.

According to fact-checkers at the Associated Press, Mr Pence last week told US senators that they should focus on the “encouraging signs”, and on Sunday said in a television interview that coronavirus outbreaks were occurring in only “4 per cent of all the counties in this country”.

But as AP reported, while it was correct that about 4 per cent of US counties were reporting increases in COVID-19 cases, they accounted for more than 20 per cent of the US population. “The emphasis on a percentage of counties makes for a misleading portrayal of the virus threat,” the fact-checkers said.

CNN’s Fact First also took a look at Mr Pence’s claims, including that all 50 US states were “opening up safely and responsibly”. According to the fact-checkers, Mr Pence’s claim came as “about 30 states were experiencing increases in the rate of new cases” and as states “reopened without having met the administration’s recommended safety milestones”.

Mr Pence also claimed that “to one extent or another, the volume of new cases coming in is a reflection of great success in expanding testing across the country”. However, as the New York Times pointed out in a fact-check, “ramped up testing alone does not account for the uptick in cases”. There had also been an increase in positive tests as a proportion of all tests.

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

#33: Hand dryers
“Hand dryers are not effective in killing the 2019-nCoV. To protect yourself against the new coronavirus, you should frequently clean your hands with an alcohol-based hand rub or wash them with soap and water.” – World Health Organisation

COVID-19 Fact and Fiction #16

Posted by Lona Goudswaard at 3:49 am Politics

Jun 262020

ASYMPTOMATIC COVID-19 CARRIERS DO INFECT OTHERS — BUT DETAILS ARE STILL UNKNOWN

Image source: Facebook

Six months after the novel coronavirus outbreak was first identified, scientists and health authorities still have to answer major questions about it. One is: how easily can asymptomatic carriers pass the virus onto others?

Fact-checkers at PolitiFact found a claim that the World Health Organisation “now admits that asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19 is very rare” to be only half true. An official of the WHO did make that comment on June 8: “They’re following asymptomatic cases, they’re following contacts and they’re not finding secondary transmission onward — it’s very rare.”, but when seeking to clarify her comments, she said she had been referring data in the subset of studies as well as unpublished data, not the of transmissions as such.

FactCheck.org also unpacked the official’s statements, concluding: “It is well documented that people without symptoms can transmit SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. But it is not yet known how often that happens, or how frequently that involves someone who is completely asymptomatic.”

IN AUSTRALIA, A VIRUS SPIKE IS LINKED TO FAMILIES, NOT TO BLACK LIVES MATTER RALLY

Image source: ABC News/Will Jackson

With COVID-19 case numbers on the rise in one of Australia’s states, Victoria, some people have drawn an unsubstantiated link between the spike and the large Black Lives Matter protest held in its capital Melbourne on June 6.

Tweeting this week, Liberal⁺ senator Sarah Henderson said: “Daniel Andrews blames law abiding Victorian families for doing the wrong thing rather than 10,000 illegal protesters?”

A number of Senator Henderson’s Liberal Party⁺ colleagues, as well as Evan Mulholland of the Institute of Public Affairs, tweeted similar criticisms, while headlines have also declared that the “upsurge in COVID cases [is] linked to Melbourne Black Lives Matter protests”.

But these declarations contradict the guidance of officials of the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services, who continue to report that the current burst of cases does not stem from the rally. They have said that while one protester “may have been infectious at the rally”, two others who have since tested positive for COVID-19 were not infectious at the rally, nor is there evidence they contracted the virus at the rally. Rather the increase in cases have been linked to family gatherings, citing family spread as the “main cause” of 120 cases in the week to June 22, by not following advice around physical distancing, hygiene and limiting the number of people invited into the home.

Australia’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Nick Coatsworth, also dismissed claims the spike could be linked to the protests, telling reporters that “there is no evidence that there have been chains of community transmission that we are aware of through the Black Lives Matter protests”.^§

⁺ The Liberal party is part of the Coalition which currently forms the centre-right Australian Federal Government, where the liberal parties of Europe can also be found.

^§Despite great opposition of the federal and state governments to these protests, people took to the streets in exceptionally great numbers in the states which had very low transmissions at the time. No other cases of contraction of the new coronavirus were linked to any of the other rallies.

BLM AND COVID-19 CONVERGE IN THE US

Image source: Supplied

In the US, where the coronavirus pandemic has hit hard and momentum continues to build for the Black Lives Matter movement, the convergence of the two events has inevitably led to the spread of more misinformation, complete with a conspiracy theory involving Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

Fact-checkers at Reuters have found a claim that Melinda Gates, wife of Bill, said that “black people must be vaccinated first” for COVID-19 misleading. The claim appeared on Facebook as protesters took to the streets in the US as part of the Black Lives Matter movement.

What Ms Gates told TIME magazine was that, after healthcare workers, black people and other people of colour should have priority access to a vaccine in the US as they were being disproportionately affected by the virus.

Meanwhile, a claim that George Floyd’s murder must have been filmed before the coronavirus crisis, because no-one in the video is wearing a face mask, has been rated “pants on fire” by PolitiFact. They found that bystanders seen in the video were indeed wearing masks, even though it was filmed one day before Minneapolis started requiring people to wear the protective coverings in indoor public spaces.

STILL NO EVIDENCE THE NOVEL CORONAVIRUS WAS CREATED IN A LAB

Image source: LifeSiteNews

Claims that the novel coronavirus was created in and released from a lab in Wuhan, China, continue to circulate, despite scientific consensus that the virus more likely originated in nature.

In one “exclusive article” published by Canadian Christian website LifeSiteNews, a headline — “Virus researchers uncover new evidence implying COVID-19 was created in a lab” — misrepresents a yet-to-be peer-reviewed Australian study, according to the researchers. While the research did conclude that the unintentional release of COVID-19 from a lab could have happened, it did not imply it was the most likely option nor did it suggest that other possibilities were unlikely as LifeSiteNews suggested.

Flinders University’s Nikolai Petrovsky, one of the authors of the study, told RMIT ABC Fact Check: “We can only speculate as to what this finding means in terms of origin of the virus.”

Meanwhile, fact-checkers at Full Fact have said that despite some claims, peer-reviewed research from Norway had not found the virus to have been artificially engineered.

The claims had reportedly appeared in an earlier, non-peer-reviewed version of the study, and were aired in the Norwegian press by one of the study’s authors. However, the final version of the paper “doesn’t actually make any claims about whether the virus was natural or man-made in its current form”, according to the fact-checkers.

“The scientific community widely agrees that the virus was not artificially engineered,” they added.

ANTI-AFRICAN SENTIMENT SPREADS IN CHINA

The Washington Post Fact-checker has found that despite assurances from officials, black and African residents of the Chinese city of Guangzhou have been the subject of a targeted crackdown over fears they are spreading the coronavirus.

In one incident caught on film, a McDonald’s store in the city displayed a sign informing patrons that “black people are not allowed to enter the restaurant”. Meanwhile, a pizza shop owner wrote on LinkedIn that local authorities had told him to refuse dine-in service to foreigners, “especially black people”.

According to the Washington Post, officials claimed such events were the result of a “miscommunication”.

But the fact-checkers found that as reports emerged in early April of Nigerian men testing positive for the virus in Guangzhou, anti-African sentiment started spreading on Chinese social media, with a reported uptick in posts using the n-word and referring to “illegals”.

A landlord has received instructions to report any black people in their building to authorities, while an African-Canadian man in the city said he had been confronted by officials in his home and refused entry to the subway. Yet Chinese state media said reports of discrimination were “fake news” and a police officer “assured the public that all foreigners in Guangzhou were treated equally to Chinese nationals”.

However, the bottom line was that “Africans and the larger black community in Guangzhou faced evictions, discrimination and the restriction of their movements on the basis of the colour of their skin over coronavirus fears”.

FROM WASHINGTON, D.C.

The US continues to hold the bleak title of the country with the highest number of COVID-19 cases (more than 2 million) as well as deaths (more than 120,000), but that hasn’t stopped President Donald Trump from claiming the outbreak is worse elsewhere.

Speaking on June 5, Mr Trump said that the city of Tijuana, which lies on the westernmost point of Mexico’s border with the US, was the “most heavily infected place anywhere in the world, as far as the plague is concerned”.

FactCheck.org found that claim to be inaccurate, and that even the US city nearest to Tijuana, San Diego, had more cases and a higher rate of infection, though it had recorded fewer deaths.

In the District of Columbia, where Mr Trump lives in the White House, the rate of COVID-19 infection was 10 times higher than that of Tijuana, the fact-checkers found, while in Queens County, New York, a virus hotpot, the rate was 21 times higher.

Despite his claims being debunked, President Donald Trump has continued to argue at his much-hyped campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that the coronavirus outbreak is worse elsewhere, suggesting that widespread testing had led to higher numbers of COVID-19 cases being recorded.

“When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people, you’re going to find more cases,” he said, echoing comments he made a few days earlier at a White House round-table discussion, and on Twitter.

“We will show more — more cases when other countries have far more cases than we do; they just don’t talk about it.”

But PolitiFact found that while the US has conducted a large volume of testing, this simply reflected the extent of the outbreak in the country. “A way to understand this: the number of tests necessary to identify a positive case,” the fact-checkers said. “If it’s easier to find a positive case, that suggests the virus has spread further and more testing is necessary to track the spread of COVID-19.”

According to a fact check compiled by the New York Time s, the US on average returns one positive case every 21 tests, whereas Italy, another country hit hard by the virus, is recording one positive case in every 188 tests.

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

#31: Cold weather and snow
“There is no reason to believe that cold weather can kill the new coronavirus or other diseases.” ⁠— World Health Organisation

#32: Taking a hot bath
“Taking a hot bath will not prevent you from catching COVID-19. Your normal body temperature remains around 36.5°C to 37°C, regardless of the temperature of your bath or shower. Actually, taking a hot bath with extremely hot water can be harmful, as it can burn you.” ⁠— World Health Organisation

COVID-19 Fact and Fiction #15

Posted by Lona Goudswaard at 4:23 am Politics

Jun 142020

As expected, with the curve flattening in Australia and Europe, the attention has turned to other news and the fake news and misinformation that go along with that, and fact-checkers are following. Unless a second wave of COVID-19 cases and fatalities brings about another wave of news manipulation, this article will now appear only once a week.

SOCIAL DISTANCING

A Meta-analysis (an analysis of existing scientific research) published in The Lancet found with “moderate certainty” that keeping a distance of a metre or more away from people with probable COVID-19, SARS or MERS cut the risk of infection from 13 per cent to 3 per cent. The analysis likewise found that “for every one metre further away in distancing, the relative effect might increase 2.02 times”.

So, according to Full Fact, the claims in UK media that keeping a distance of at least one metre from others could “slash the risk of catching coronavirus by 80 per cent”, and that doubling that distance may halve the risk, are both largely correct. But as Full Fact pointed out: “It is important to note that most of the research used in this study does not relate to COVID-19, but to SARS and MERS, diseases caused by other coronaviruses, which may spread differently.”

WEARING A MASK WON’T KILL YOU

Image source: Facebook

Fact-checkers at AFP found in a fact-check that a social media post claiming mask-wearing “reduces oxygen up to 60 per cent”, increased the risk of CO2 poisoning and led to more face touching to be misleading.

An associate medical officer of health at Toronto Public Health, Vinita Dubey, told AFP that if worn correctly, a cloth mask is unlikely to reduce oxygen enough that the wearer would pass out and that “prolonged use of a face mask, including the N95, has not been shown to cause carbon dioxide toxicity in healthy people”.

Another expert, Hyo-Jick Choi, of the University of Alberta, told the AFP fact-checkers he had not come across any study directly correlating mask-wearing to increased face-touching.

The claim of a woman in a viral video that mask-wearing hurts the immune system and does not protect from COVID-19 was also debunked by AFP, saying that “Multiple studies have shown that the use of masks can protect populations from COVID-19, including a recent publication by the UK’s Royal Society, which indicated that masks reduce droplets dispersal.”

According to Sheeley Payne, of the University of Texas, there’s no indication that masks hurt the immune system. As she told AFP, “there is no evidence that masks or gloves reduce the normal microbiota or predispose people to opportunistic infections”.

COVID-19 IS REAL AND DANGEROUS, TELL YOUR FRIENDS

Image source: Lead Stories

There are still a lot of claims going around that the COVID-19 pandemic is a hoax (or a flu-like illness, the severity of which has been greatly exaggerated), neither of which is true.

“There is no evidence of a connection between money donated to COVID-19 research and a pandemic designation,” the fact-checkers of Lead Stories concluded this week when they found that Bill Gates did not bribe the World Health Organisation with $50 million to declare COVID-19 a pandemic.

Lead Stories also debunked a claim that Russia used scientific data to expose the pandemic as a hoax, stating: “Authorities from Moscow’s health department did release information about antibody testing of a random population sample of Moscow residents in late May 2020, but they did not make the statement that COVID-19 is a fake pandemic.”

PolitFact found that a photo appearing to show a woman carrying a body bag casually in one hand, which was said to be further evidence that coronavirus is a hoax, instead showed a “symbolic funeral procession” as part of a protest in Florida against the reopening of the economy.

FROM WASHINGTON, D.C.

President Trump has been very busy escalating protests across the US in response to the death of George Floyd, but that hasn’t stopped him from attempting to divert blame for the rising COVID-19 death toll, again insinuating that China deliberately spread the coronavirus to the US and other parts of the world while managing to curb its spread domestically.

In a Fox News radio interview, Mr Trump said: “[The virus] came out of Wuhan. Why is it that it didn’t go to China but it went to the rest of the world? It went to Europe. It went to the world. It went to the United States. But it didn’t go to Beijing.” He further pointed out: “It didn’t go to other parts of China. What’s that all about? So, how come they let it go out to the world, but they didn’t let it go into China. That’s a little strange deal going on there.”

Factcheck.org found that those claims were inaccurate and that the virus did spread outside of Wuhan to other parts of China, including Beijing and noted: “That the virus did not spread as widely in China as it did in other countries, including the US, is largely the result of extreme measures taken by the Chinese government to control its spread.”

Graphic of the week

Statistics from the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System show Australia was experiencing above-average flu numbers before social distancing.

There were just 208 laboratory-confirmed cases of influenza in Australia during May this year, compared to 30,567 at the same time in 2019.

According to the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, the first two months of this year saw Australia on track to surpass record-breaking flu caseloads in 2019 before numbers halved in March.

“It just tells us the value of physically distancing, good hand hygiene, avoiding mass gatherings [when sick], cough etiquette and being aware of all those other strategies to avoid the transmission of infectious diseases,” said Kerry Hancock, chair of the RACGP Specific Interests Respiratory Medicine network.

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

#30: Drinking methanol, ethanol or bleach
“Methanol, ethanol, and bleach are poisons. Drinking them can lead to disability and death. Methanol, ethanol, and bleach are sometimes used in cleaning products to kill the virus on surfaces – however, you should never drink them. They will not kill the virus in your body and they will harm your internal organs.” – World Health Organisation

COVID-19 Fact and Fiction #14

Posted by Lona Goudswaard at 1:10 am Politics

Jun 082020

INACCURATE LOCKDOWN INFORMATION

Image source: Facebook

A post of an unhappy Facebook user argues that the restrictions are overreach by claiming the unverified COVID-19 survival rate is 98.54 per cent, while others put the death rate at 0.1 per cent or even as low as 0.004 per cent.

Fact-checkers at PolitiFact found that although a 98.54 per cent survival rate wasn’t too far off the current figure for the US, the numbers were preliminary, likely to change and not as promising as it sounds. PolitiFact noted “Even a 1 per cent mortality rate (99 per cent survival rate) would mean that a disease is 10-times more lethal than the seasonal flu.”

Meanwhile, Full Fact looked into that same figure when it was shared in the UK when the true survival rate [in the US] or in the UK is not yet known.

In the US, Lead Stories looked into a claim that a “22 Trillion dollar economy” had been shut down to stop the spread of a virus with a 0.1 per cent death rate. However, this is roughly the death rate of the seasonal flu, while figures at the time showed about 5.8 per cent of confirmed coronavirus patients were dying.

Fact-checkers at Reuters, AAP, USA Today and AFP have all debunked similar claims.

QUEEN HASN’T ANNOUNCED CHILDREN TO BE TAKEN AWAY FROM HOMES

Image source: YouTube/Ricco Chie

The title of a YouTube video viewed more than 230,000 times suggests the World Health Organisation and Queen Elizabeth II are conspiring to remove children from their homes amid the coronavirus pandemic.

However, as Reuters points out, the title does not represent the footage it shows — neither the Queen nor the WHO have made any announcements regarding the evacuation of children from coronavirus-infected homes.

The video shows a WHO senior adviser saying that because people were quarantining at home to comply with lockdown laws, some vulnerable and sick people may be removed from homes so they could be isolated, but at no point mentions children.

Meanwhile, the Queen’s special broadcast amid the pandemic saw her reflecting on her first-ever broadcast in 1940, where she spoke of children being evacuated from cities during World War II. Referring to current lockdown measures, she noted that “once again, many will feel a painful sense of separation from their loved ones”.

WRONG QUOTE ATTRIBUTION

Image source: Facebook

“Once the herd accepts mandatory forcible vaccination, it’s game over,” the quote attributed to former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, which has spread on Facebook, begins. “They will accept anything — forcible blood or organ donation — for the ‘greater good’.”

While the image has been circulating since at least early 2019, i.e. before the start of the pandemic, it has gained traction in recent months despite the ongoing efforts of fact-checkers around the world as scientists work to produce a COVID-19 vaccine and authorities urge people to get a flu shot so as not to put added strain on healthcare systems during the pandemic.

Fact-checkers from PolitiFact, Snopes and Africa Check last year found no evidence of Dr Kissinger having ever made such a claim. Since the coronavirus outbreak and re-appearance of Kissinger’s image, Reuters and Full Fact have also dismissed the claim, with representatives of Dr Kissinger telling Reuters that the quote is a “complete fabrication”.

5G BIOSHIELD

Image source: Twitter/@TheKenMunroShow

A video claiming that 5G radio waves “penetrate red blood in the lungs, making them easy prey for COVID-19 to enter and cause oxygen starvation” has been debunked by Lead Stories.

“Scientists have proven that 5G broadband can’t enter the body because skin protects the internal organs,” the fact-checkers said.” A study cited in the video as evidence for the danger was found to relate to Wi-Fi, rather than 5G, and had been widely criticised by scientists.

Meanwhile, scams used the fear these claims invoke; a device marketed as a protective measure against the supposed harm of 5G has been found by IT experts to be nothing more than a cheap USB drive with a sticker on it.

The “quantum holographic catalyzer technology for the balance and harmonisation of the harmful effects of imbalanced electric radiation” was being sold for as much as £300 ($550).

Despite the myth being busted time again, anti-5G activists continue to push disinformation, with hundreds protesting in Australia over the rollout of the technology, as well as other gripes including vaccination and the coronavirus lockdown (see COVID-19 Fact and Fiction #13).

ANTIVAXXERS STRIKE AGAIN

Image source: Facebook

A Facebook post claiming that no virus harmful to humans “has ever been proven to exist” and that “you can’t make a vaccine for something you can’t even prove exists” has quickly been discredited by Reuters. Its fact-checkers reviewed an article published in the American Society for Microbiology’s Journal of Virology which listed measles, poliomyelitis, rabies, yellow fever and smallpox as viruses which infect and are harmful to humans.

And Lynda Coughlin, a virologist at Mt Sinai Hospital, told Reuters: “The statement that “no virus harmful to humans has ever been proven to exist” is absolutely false. There are numerous examples of viruses which are known to cause disease in humans.”

COORDINATED TROLLING ABOUND

Fact-checkers, researchers and journalists all over the world are piecing together a picture of the networks, groups and individuals spreading coronavirus misinformation, including some who are pushing nationalistic disinformation.

An investigation by the BBC found that a network of more than 1,200 Twitter, YouTube and Facebook accounts was being used to praise Beijing’s handling of the coronavirus crisis and at the same time amplifying negative messages about those who are critical of China’s response.

“Although there is no definitive evidence that this network is linked to the Chinese government,” the BBC said, “it does display features similar to a state-backed information operation originating in China that Facebook and Twitter removed last year.”

In the US, NBC has reported that “troll farms” in North Macedonia and the Philippines have been responsible for coronavirus disinformation on Facebook. A large publisher of fake content, Natural News”, an anti-vaccination news site that frequently posts false coronavirus conspiracy theories about 5G towers and Bill Gates, is already banned from the social media platform after pushing the discredited “Plandemic” video. NBC added that the trolls also posted content from Natural News’ sister sites, NewsTarget and Brighteon.

Meanwhile, new research commissioned by the Australia Institute’s Centre for Responsible Technology and conducted by experts at the Queensland University of Technology has found that pro-Trump and QAnon conspiracy Twitter bots have been responsible for pushing the theory that COVID-19 is a Chinese bio-weapon.

“The coordinated efforts to promote the bioweapon conspiracy theory focused on 882 original tweets, which were retweeted 18,498 times and liked 31,783 times, creating an estimated 5 million impressions on Twitter users,” the researchers found.

“Similar research in January suggests there is a sustained, coordinated effort to promote this theory by pro-Trump, Republican and aligned networks of accounts.”

FROM WASHINGTON, D.C.

The Washington Post’s Fact-checker, having analysed thousands of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube posts and advertisements from US President Donald Trump, his campaign team and “a long list of surrogates”, has found that together they are creating an online “alternate reality” around the coronavirus.

“The data revealed the backbone of a five-point strategy to tell their version of the coronavirus story,” the fact-checkers determined. “Rewriting mistakes, highlighting achievements, deflecting blame, declaring victory and creating distraction.” (emphasis mine)

After downplaying the threat in the early stages of the virus outbreak, according to the Post, Mr Trump cum suis have pivoted to more self-promotional tactics in early March. By mid-April to early May, “[Mr] Trump and his team appeared to all but claim victory over the virus”, before moving on to discuss new topics online, including launching attacks on his political adversaries and presumptive election opponent Joe Biden.

“All presidential campaigns try to portray their candidate in the best possible light,” the fact-checkers concluded. “But what is notable about the Trump campaign is that its social media reach allows the campaign to rewrite even the most recent history.”

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

#29: Exposing yourself to the sun or temperatures higher than 25C
“You can catch COVID-19, no matter how sunny or hot the weather is. Countries with hot weather have reported cases of COVID-19.” – World Health Organisation

COVID-19 Fact and Fiction #13

Posted by Lona Goudswaard at 3:45 am Politics

Jun 042020

KILL BILL (1)

Image source: Nicolas Zoumboulis/The Swanston Gazette

Despite coronavirus lockdown restrictions, hundreds of people have gathered at rallies across Australia to protest against 5G technology, mandatory vaccination and a host of other grievances.

Last weekend an event was organised in Melbourne by the Facebook page ‘MMAMV Australia‘ (Millions March Against Mandatory Vaccination), and information about the protests was shared within the Facebook group ‘99% unite Main Group “it’s us or them”‘, which has more than 58,000 members and is popular with conspiracy theorists who continue to repeat claims about supposed health risks linked to 5G technology and vaccines which have been debunked elsewhere.

But the Facebook event pages promoting these rallies also urged people to attend if they were concerned over a wide range of issues around COVID-19 Many attendees held signs that called for the arrest or death of Bill Gates, referring to the profusion of debunked claims and conspiracies about the Microsoft founder.

Some went so far as to claim the entire COVID-19 pandemic was a hoax, insisting that the virus was not “as bad as people have said”, with others adding: “We don’t even know anyone who has COVID-19, and if you’ve got doctors and nurses who have got no work to do, how real can it be?”

With efforts to develop a coronavirus vaccine continuing, the crowd voiced concerns around the “toxic” make-up of vaccines, claims which have been extensively researched and were recently marked by Full Fact as extremely misleading.

HAND SANITIZER

Image source: Facebook

The use of hand sanitiser is the next best thing after washing your hands for 20 seconds, but a viral social media post purporting to show the aftermath of a car fire caused by an exploding bottle of hand sanitiser left out on a hot day may have some people worried.

However, Full Fact found that unless the car had reached temperatures of more than 350 degrees celsius, an external spark would be needed to ignite the sanitiser. Fact-checkers have also been unable to verify whether the fire damage in the photo was truly caused by exploding hand sanitiser.

CORONA CHILDREN

Image source: Facebook (1, 2)

Facebook pages have fraudulently used an old photo of a sick baby in a post claiming the child had contracted the coronavirus after open heart surgery, according to fact-checkers at Lead Stories.

“This is baby Kyle. Few weeks ago He survived an opened heart surgery, And today the doctors confirm That he has Corona Virus,” the post states. “He only want you to help him out, by sharing this post to even if it’s 5 different Facebook groups so He can get many prayers as possible.”

This wasn’t the only photo used to stimulate Facebook likes amid the pandemic. Lead Stories also found an altered photo of a little girl, with a breathing tube, holding a sign with an accompanying caption that falsely suggested she had COVID-19. “Nobody wants to pray for me,” the sign says. “Please like my photo and pray.”

But in the original photo, shared on Reddit five months ago, the sign says: “It’s my last day of chemo!”

JAPAN WILL PAY FOR YOUR HOLIDAY

Image source: 7News

After Australian websites including 7News recently ran headlines declaring “Japan could pay for part of your post-coronavirus holiday”, fact-checkers at AFP warned that’s not the case. In reality, the subsidised travel plan being considered by Japan would only apply to Japanese residents travelling within the country, not to foreign visitors.

“Please note that the Go to Travel Campaign under consideration by the Japanese government is to stimulate domestic travel demand within Japan after the Covid-19 pandemic and only cover a portion of domestic travel expenses,” the Japan Tourism Agency said in a series of tweets

DOLLAR BILL (2)

Image source: Facebook

“What’s bill gates and the Corona virus doing on Australian 10 dollar note?” a post asks, alongside a photo of the note. “Many will just blow this off. Wake up, it’s been planned for years.”

Of course, the note, which has been in circulation since 2017, doesn’t show Bill Gates or the coronavirus as fact-checkers at AFP have (not surprisingly) discovered. According to the Reserve Bank of Australia the person depicted is Australian writer Mary Gilmore, whereas the circular illustration is a “designer’s interpretation of a Bramble Wattle”, a native Australian bush.

CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF BILL (3)

Image source: Facebook

It’s not only Australia which can’t get enough of Bill Gates.

Mr. Gates did not “explain” how he injects GMOs (genetically modified organisms) into “little kids’ arms … right into the vein”, as one video purports to show. According to Lead Stories the clip had been taken and shared out of context.

“While this is a real video clip of [Mr Gates] speaking, he was making an analogy that he believes the safety of genetically modified crops should be tested before becoming part of the human diet just as vaccines are tested before being given to children.”

Meanwhile, Reuters found that neither Mr Gates, nor his wife Melinda, nor US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci nor the head of the World Health Organisation, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, are set to appear before the “Human Rights Tribunal International” on charges of war crimes, as was claimed in a number of Facebook posts. “The posts purport to show a letter from the Human Rights Tribunal International, an organisation that does not exist either in the United States or elsewhere.”

If you’ve read most of the COVID-19 Fact and Fiction articles and you are wondering why yhey contain so many references to Bill Gates, his wife and his organization, this graph from the ABC showing Facebook mentions of “Bill Gates” and “vaccines” over recent months may give you some insight how both topics have been lightning rods for coronavirus conspiracies and misinformation.

Fact-checkers are having a very hard time just to keep up with these attacks on the Gates and with debunking them.

FROM WASHINGTON, D.C.

US President Donald Trump has been heavily criticised for playing golf over the recent Memorial Day long weekend as the country’s coronavirus death toll neared 100,000.

As usual, Mr Trump’s response was to point the finger at his predecessor and to accuse the media in a series of tweets of ignoring “all of the time [Barack] Obama spent on the golf course, often flying to Hawaii in a big, fully loaded 747, to play. What did that do to the so-called Carbon Footprint?”

Fact-checkers at CNN’s Facts First calculated that President Obama had played 98 rounds of golf up to the same point in his presidency as Mr Trump. By contrast, Mr Trump has spent time at a Trump golf course on 266 days of his term so far, according to CNN.

As to the biggest carbon footprint, Trump was again the clear winner. “Just Trump’s airplane trips to his Mar-a-Lago Club and residence in Florida, from which he has often taken a motorcade ride to a nearby golf course he owns, have required far more air travel than Obama’s once-a-year Hawaii vacations did through this point in the term.”

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

#28: Adding hot peppers (capsicum/chilli) to food
“Hot peppers in your food, though very tasty, cannot prevent or cure COVID-19.” ⁠— World Health Organisation

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