COVID-19 Fact and Fiction #29

Posted by Lona Goudswaard at 10:25 pm Politics

Oct 292020

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.*

This inoculation against misinformation is a special US election edition, put together by Ellen McCutchan, RMIT ABC Fact Check, touching on as many false coronavirus claims from both presidential candidates that could fit into this article – from the first uses of the word “pandemic” to the politically charged hydroxychloroquine debate – and weighed the facts around voting by mail.

Donald Trump’s most egregious false coronavirus claims

Reuters: Tom Brenner

Since assuming office in January 2017, US President Donald Trump has served up more than 22,000 false claims, according to the Washington Post Fact Checker, of which more than 13,000 have been related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Fact Checker uses a system of “Pinocchios” by which to judge claims – the more Pinocchios a claim is awarded, the less factual it is considered.

So, which of Mr Trump’s coronavirus claims have been deemed his biggest whoppers?

While Fact Checker usually caps the number of Pinocchios it awards to four, in cases where a false statement is repeated more than 20 times “bottomless” Pinocchios come into play, as is the case with Mr Trump’s claim (repeated 42 times) that hydroxychloroquine is a cure for COVID-19.”On June 15, [the Food and Drug Administration] withdrew its emergency use authorisation for hydroxychloroquine, concluding that it ‘is no longer reasonable to believe’ that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are effective in treating the disease,” the Post noted.

A claim that former President Barack Obama left behind no ventilators when he left office was awarded bottomless Pinocchios by the Post team – in fact, 16,600 working ventilators were part of the national stockpile of healthcare equipment when Mr Trump became president.

Another suggestion from Mr Trump that the Obama administration left the US unprepared for a pandemic due to “red tape” and regulations which slowed efforts to roll out testing was awarded four Pinocchios, as were comments about Mr Obama’s handling of the 2009 outbreak of swine flu.

Also earning the Post’s four Pinocchio rating was a claim – repeated 12 times in various guises by Mr Trump – that the wall being built on the Mexico border had prevented a larger outbreak of COVID-19 in the US.

“Public health experts said [the wall] made no difference because travellers from China and Europe brought the virus to the United States and it spread over following months due to lax and inconsistent public health measures inside the country,” the fact-checkers said.

Some of Joe Biden’s coronavirus claims were wide of the mark also

Reuters: Brian Snyder

While Mr Trump’s false coronavirus claims may number in the thousands, his opponent hasn’t been immune from spreading a few falsehoods of his own.

Fact checkers at PolitiFact found, for instance, that despite a claim from Democratic challenger Joe Biden to the contrary, Mr Trump could not have prevented every COVID-19 death in the US had he “done his job from the beginning”.

“A more robust handling of the pandemic would likely have seen the country’s death count significantly reduced, but not to zero,” public health experts told PolitiFact.

The publication also found Mr Biden had exaggerated remarks made by Mr Trump in regards to curing COVID-19. While Mr Biden claimed Mr Trump had told Americans infected with the virus they “may be OK” if they drank bleach, the fact -heckers reported that the President was less explicit in his suggestion.

“Trump did not specifically recommend ingesting disinfectants, but he did express interest in exploring whether disinfectants could be applied to the site of a coronavirus infection inside the body, such as the lungs,” they reported.

FactCheck.org, meanwhile, delved into the archives in order to revisit Mr Biden’s early statements on the coronavirus pandemic.

In one example, the fact-checkers found that a claim made by Mr Biden in September, that he had labelled the coronavirus crisis a pandemic as early as January, was an exaggeration of a warning he issued that the virus could turn into a pandemic.

According to FactCheck.org, Mr Biden also exaggerated how early he had taken a stance on the use of face masks to curb the spread of the virus.

“We couldn’t find any instances of Biden ‘all the way back in March … calling for the need for us to have masks’, as he claimed.”

Finally, the fact-checkers found that a claim made by Mr Biden during the Democratic National Convention that the US response to the pandemic was “by far the worst performance of any nation on Earth” was missing context. Using figures available at the time of the claim in August, FactCheck.org concluded that while Mr Biden’s claim was “true based on the raw totals of COVID-19 cases and deaths, the US is not the worst when adjusted for population or on other metrics”.

The facts on mail-in voting

AP: Rich Pedroncelli

Elections in the midst of a global pandemic are a fraught exercise, perhaps especially in the US, where the notion of swathes of voters attending polling stations while the country records more than 60,000 new daily cases of COVID-19 seems downright dangerous.

Voting by mail might seem like an obvious solution, but for many states it’s not that clear cut.

Some states, such as Arizona, will allow anyone to vote by mail, should they request to do so. Others, including California, have sent a mail-in ballot to all registered voters, regardless of whether they requested one. In states like Indiana, however, voters must provide a reason, such as illness, as to why they can’t make it to the polling booth on election day, while in Wisconsin, a witness is required for voters marking their mail-in ballot.

With up to 50 per cent of votes expected to be cast by mail in next week’s election, Mr Trump has, throughout his campaign, issued a steady stream of claims as to the validity and security of such voting. But what do the fact checkers say?

Back in September, FactCheck.org compiled a list of Mr Trump’s repeated false claims about mail-in voting.

They ruled as false a claim that “millions of mail-in ballots will be printed by foreign countries” leading to a “rigged” election, given the “numerous logistical hurdles”, such as bar codes and signature checks, that would need to be jumped in order to get large numbers of fake ballots past the scrutiny of election officials.

“After [FactCheck.org’s] story, US intelligence officials in a background briefing with reporters said they have not seen any foreign attempts to counterfeit mail-in ballots,” the fact checkers said.

Another Trump claim, that the Democratic Party had sent out 80 million unsolicited ballots in order to “harvest” votes, was likewise found to be false.

“Mail ballots will be sent automatically to eligible registered voters in only nine states and the District of Columbia,” FactCheck.org said. “That’s about 44 million ballots – not 80 million – and they will be going to Republicans as well as Democrats and independents.”

More recently, a tweet from Mr Trump claiming there had been “big problems and discrepancies with mail-in ballots all over the US” was this week labelled by Twitter as containing “disputed” content which may be “misleading”.

“While mail-in ballots have proved to be secure and are already used broadly in several states, the President has issued false and misleading information about the process,” Politico reported, in reference to the label.

Meanwhile, a Facebook post claiming Mr Trump had already voted twice in the election was deemed false by PolitiFact.

“Trump voted in person at a library in Palm Beach County Oct. 24,” the fact checkers said. “The Supervisor of Elections said he did not vote twice in the general election.”

compiled by gaming website Polygon

*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.

Everyday Erinyes #237

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 10:19 am Politics

Oct 242020

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

The Furies and I have discussed “deepfakes” before. it’s a highly technical subject, but olnly at our peril do we dismiss it as bening “too hard.” Because we are all vulnerable, and the more we know, the better we can defend ourselves against – whatever.
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In a battle of AI versus AI, researchers are preparing for the coming wave of deepfake propaganda

AI-powered detectors are the best tools for spotting AI-generated fake videos.
The Washington Post via Getty Images

John Sohrawardi, Rochester Institute of Technology and Matthew Wright, Rochester Institute of Technology

An investigative journalist receives a video from an anonymous whistleblower. It shows a candidate for president admitting to illegal activity. But is this video real? If so, it would be huge news – the scoop of a lifetime – and could completely turn around the upcoming elections. But the journalist runs the video through a specialized tool, which tells her that the video isn’t what it seems. In fact, it’s a “deepfake,” a video made using artificial intelligence with deep learning.

Journalists all over the world could soon be using a tool like this. In a few years, a tool like this could even be used by everyone to root out fake content in their social media feeds.

As researchers who have been studying deepfake detection and developing a tool for journalists, we see a future for these tools. They won’t solve all our problems, though, and they will be just one part of the arsenal in the broader fight against disinformation.

The problem with deepfakes

Most people know that you can’t believe everything you see. Over the last couple of decades, savvy news consumers have gotten used to seeing images manipulated with photo-editing software. Videos, though, are another story. Hollywood directors can spend millions of dollars on special effects to make up a realistic scene. But using deepfakes, amateurs with a few thousand dollars of computer equipment and a few weeks to spend could make something almost as true to life.

Deepfakes make it possible to put people into movie scenes they were never in – think Tom Cruise playing Iron Man – which makes for entertaining videos. Unfortunately, it also makes it possible to create pornography without the consent of the people depicted. So far, those people, nearly all women, are the biggest victims when deepfake technology is misused.

Deepfakes can also be used to create videos of political leaders saying things they never said. The Belgian Socialist Party released a low-quality nondeepfake but still phony video of President Trump insulting Belgium, which got enough of a reaction to show the potential risks of higher-quality deepfakes.

University of California, Berkeley’s Hany Farid explains how deepfakes are made.

Perhaps scariest of all, they can be used to create doubt about the content of real videos, by suggesting that they could be deepfakes.

Given these risks, it would be extremely valuable to be able to detect deepfakes and label them clearly. This would ensure that fake videos do not fool the public, and that real videos can be received as authentic.

Spotting fakes

Deepfake detection as a field of research was begun a little over three years ago. Early work focused on detecting visible problems in the videos, such as deepfakes that didn’t blink. With time, however, the fakes have gotten better at mimicking real videos and become harder to spot for both people and detection tools.

There are two major categories of deepfake detection research. The first involves looking at the behavior of people in the videos. Suppose you have a lot of video of someone famous, such as President Obama. Artificial intelligence can use this video to learn his patterns, from his hand gestures to his pauses in speech. It can then watch a deepfake of him and notice where it does not match those patterns. This approach has the advantage of possibly working even if the video quality itself is essentially perfect.

SRI International’s Aaron Lawson describes one approach to detecting deepfakes.

Other researchers, including our team, have been focused on differences that all deepfakes have compared to real videos. Deepfake videos are often created by merging individually generated frames to form videos. Taking that into account, our team’s methods extract the essential data from the faces in individual frames of a video and then track them through sets of concurrent frames. This allows us to detect inconsistencies in the flow of the information from one frame to another. We use a similar approach for our fake audio detection system as well.

These subtle details are hard for people to see, but show how deepfakes are not quite perfect yet. Detectors like these can work for any person, not just a few world leaders. In the end, it may be that both types of deepfake detectors will be needed.

Recent detection systems perform very well on videos specifically gathered for evaluating the tools. Unfortunately, even the best models do poorly on videos found online. Improving these tools to be more robust and useful is the key next step.

[Get facts about coronavirus and the latest research. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]

Who should use deepfake detectors?

Ideally, a deepfake verification tool should be available to everyone. However, this technology is in the early stages of development. Researchers need to improve the tools and protect them against hackers before releasing them broadly.

At the same time, though, the tools to make deepfakes are available to anybody who wants to fool the public. Sitting on the sidelines is not an option. For our team, the right balance was to work with journalists, because they are the first line of defense against the spread of misinformation.

Before publishing stories, journalists need to verify the information. They already have tried-and-true methods, like checking with sources and getting more than one person to verify key facts. So by putting the tool into their hands, we give them more information, and we know that they will not rely on the technology alone, given that it can make mistakes.

Can the detectors win the arms race?

It is encouraging to see teams from Facebook and Microsoft investing in technology to understand and detect deepfakes. This field needs more research to keep up with the speed of advances in deepfake technology.

Journalists and the social media platforms also need to figure out how best to warn people about deepfakes when they are detected. Research has shown that people remember the lie, but not the fact that it was a lie. Will the same be true for fake videos? Simply putting “Deepfake” in the title might not be enough to counter some kinds of disinformation.

Deepfakes are here to stay. Managing disinformation and protecting the public will be more challenging than ever as artificial intelligence gets more powerful. We are part of a growing research community that is taking on this threat, in which detection is just the first step.

John Sohrawardi, Doctoral Student in Computing and Informational Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology and Matthew Wright, Professor of Computing Security, Rochester Institute of Technology

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, ss Mr. Sohrawardi and Prof. Wright say above, “Sitting on the sidelines is not an option.” that doesn’t mean we all need to be technical experts, but it does mean we need at least to be broadly aware of how technology is progressing and what it can do both for truth and for lies.

The Furies and I will be back.

COVID-19 Fact and Fiction #28

Posted by Lona Goudswaard at 10:52 pm Politics

Oct 082020

This article is not based on information of fact-checkers but it is a so-called Short Take from an article published today on the SCIENCE section of ABC News on how COVID-19 disinformation is used to attack Beijing by a group that has strong ties to Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former White House Chief Strategist.

Although the article on the ABC News site is written for Australia, the connections to the US and China warrant it to be noted in this series as yet another way COVOD-19 is used in political strategies. I urge you to read the full article on the ABC News site.

Anti-Beijing group with links to Steve Bannon spreading COVID-19 misinformation in Australia

ABC Science By technology reporter Ariel Bogle and Iris Zhao

Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and Chinese businessman Guo Wengui have joined forces on a number of media platforms. (Getty Images: DON EMMERT/AFP)

When Christine’s mother asked her for help printing political pamphlets about COVID-19, it took her by surprise.

She already knew her mum belonged to a new political group that aims to take down the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Christine expected the fliers might be pro-US President Donald Trump or anti-Chinese Government.

She didn’t expect that they would contain COVID-19 health misinformation.

“I was pretty disgusted,” Christine said. “I didn’t actually know it was misinformation that could be harming people.”

Christine says her mother is involved with the New Federal State of China movement, which operates in Australia in part under the name Himalaya Australia.

The movement was launched on June 4 this year — the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre — by controversial Chinese businessman Guo Wengui and former White House strategist Steve Bannon.

Now it appears to be growing its activity in Australia. In recent weeks, pamphlets with a Himalaya Australia logo have turned up in letterboxes across Australia, while at the same time the group has grown its online presence.

A pamphlet with the Himalaya Australia logo found in a Sydney postbox.(ABC News: Supplied)

Donald Trump used his return to the Oval Office yesterday to promote the experimental cocktail of drugs he received during his treatment for COVID-19, while warning China will pay a”big price for what they’ve done” to the United States.

Coincidence? With many Twitter accounts besides Mr Guo’s own media platforms regularly sharing anti-CCP and pro-Trump posts and videos, the movement has a global reach.

COVID-19 Fact and Fiction #27

Posted by Lona Goudswaard at 2:24 am Politics

Oct 022020

Most fact-checking issues stem from Australia again, this week, but because the disinformation is spread through social media, it soon is spread to the rest of the world where some start to lead a life of its own.

ANOTHER ‘CLAIM’ ABOUT THE ‘TRUE’ COVID-19 DEATH RATE DEBUNKED

An image posted to Facebook misrepresents the findings of a Federal Government report (Supplied)

The world surpassed more than 1 million COVID-19 deaths, yet claims that the “true” death rate of the disease is far lower than officially reported have started to circulate again. The latest example on Facebook asserts that an Australian Federal Government report “proves with its own evidence the 29 August deaths were not 600”.

“The true COVID deaths are only 54!”, states the post, which was shared by a user known as “Political Posting Mumma” who has 20,000 followers.

The image points to a page of the Government’s 22nd COVID-19 Epidemiology Report, which supposedly indicates that just 9 per cent of reported COVID deaths were essentially caused by the disease.

However, the page of the report cited in the post does not refer to COVID-19 deaths but discusses COVID-19 cases admitted to Australian hospitals, either in general wards or intensive care units. For those cases, the report found all but 9 per cent suffered from one or more comorbidities in addition to COVID-19.

Referring to COVID-19 deaths, a table in the report shows that 80 per cent of patients who died in hospital, and for whom data was available, had suffered one or more comorbidities.

When a similar claim about over-reported deaths went viral in the US a few weeks ago, fact-checkers found that although COVID-19 was listed on death certificates as the sole cause of death in just 6 per cent of fatalities attributed to the virus, that didn’t mean the coronavirus didn’t cause or contribute to the remaining 94 per cent of deaths.

As FactCheck.org explained, death certificates list “any causes or conditions” that contribute to a person’s death.

“In the case of COVID-19, the disease often causes other serious conditions, such as pneumonia or acute respiratory distress syndrome,” the fact-checkers said. “The underlying cause of death, however, is the condition that started the chain of events that led to a person’s death.”

A spokesman for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told FactCheck.org that in 92 per cent of all deaths that mention COVID-19, the coronavirus was listed as the underlying cause of death.

“So, it’s misleading to say that 94 per cent of those who died with COVID-19 also had other ailments without explaining that the disease causes other serious illnesses. And it’s wrong to claim that only 6 per cent of the recorded COVID-19 deaths were caused by the disease,” the fact-checkers concluded.

VICTORIA’S PREMIER DANIEL ANDREWS IS NOT OUT AND ABOUT WITHOUT A MASK

A Facebook post showing a maskless Daniel Andrews (Supplied)

“Dan not wearing a mask, not social distancing,” reads the post, which was shared by a page titled “Melbourne Detective – Private Investigator”, showing an image taken from a TV report first screened in August, which shows Victoria’s Premier Andrews without a mask and not social distancing with little context, leading some users to assume the image is current and comment:

“They lead by example,”

“Do as I say not as I do, HYPOCRITICAL,”

The image shared to Facebook does appear to have been drawn from a recent news report, but that it is simply stock footage, taken at a 2018 news conference held at Melbourne Polytechnic, long before the COVID-19 pandemic led to mandatory mask-wearing and a call for 1.5-metre buffer zones between people. Images and video of the same event were published by SBS (via AAP), The Australian and the Herald Sun.

MELBOURNE’S LOCKDOWN IS NOT THE MOST SEVERE IN THE WORLD OUTSIDE OF WUHAN

Tony Abbott’s claim about Melbourne’s lockdown was wrong (AAP: Bianca De Marchi)

Speaking in London earlier this month, Australia’s former prime minister Tony Abbott claimed coronavirus restrictions in Victoria constituted the “most severe lockdown tried anywhere in the world outside of Wuhan itself”.

Fact-check this week found Mr Abbott’s claim to be wrong.

Many governments adopted individual policies similar to Victoria’s such as curfews and stay-home orders. Some rules were even stricter. Spain and Argentina banned outdoor exercise entirely while Israel limited walks to within 100 metres of home.

Chile allowed only twice-weekly shopping trips, and both South Africa and India banned the sale of alcohol. Whereas New Zealand prohibited takeaway food and drinks, Victorians could at least still visit their local cafe to pick up a coffee.

Melbourne wasn’t alone when it came to quarantining buildings either; the German city of Göttingen and several Indian cities sealed off apartment blocks too.

Additionally, at the time of Mr Abbott’s claim, Victoria had not endured the longest lockdown. Melburnians had by then spent 31 days under the state’s toughest stage 4 restrictions. However, the residents of greater Buenos Aires had been stuck at home for 166 days straight and Santiago’s lockdown lasted 94 days — and was even longer for seniors.

Nine countries had kept strict, countrywide stay-home orders in place for at least 50 days running. That included Honduras, whose lockdown stretched for 159 days.

According to a comparative “stringency index” developed by academics at Oxford University, 14 countries achieved the maximum possible score for the overall severity of their lockdowns. Fact-check has calculated that the state’s coronavirus restrictions would not have fallen within the maximum range.

By Fact-check’s estimate, 37 countries scored the same as – or higher than – Victoria at various times during the pandemic. Of those, 21 had sustained those scores for longer than Victoria’s stage 4 lockdown when Mr Abbott made his claim.

FROM WASHINGTON, D.C.

US fact-checkers spent all of Tuesday night checking the myriad claims from the first US presidential debate between incumbent Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden ahead of the November 3 election.

On the topic of the coronavirus, PolitiFact found that a claim made by Mr Biden regarding Mr Trump’s handling of the pandemic lacked context.

While Mr Biden claimed the President had “no plan” for the pandemic, the fact-checkers found that while public health experts have said Mr Trump did not have a plan for national coronavirus testing, his administration had announced a plan for distributing vaccines.

In contrast, the President’s claim that his campaign rallies had not had a “negative effect” in regards to COVID-19 was rated false by the New York Times.

“At least eight campaign staff members who helped plan President Trump’s indoor rally in June in Tulsa, [Oklahoma], including members of the Secret Service, tested positive for the coronavirus, either before the rally or after attending,” the Times said.

The Times also found Mr Trump falsely claimed the Obama administration’s response to swine flu (H1N1) was a “disaster” and that his assertion that “we are weeks away from a vaccine” went against the advice of top health officials, who say a widely-available jab is months away.

BREAKING NEWS

US President Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump both test positive for COVID-19, but the President will continue carrying out his duties without disruption while quarantining, says his doctor. (ABC news)

Whether this is an extremely embarrassing fact or disinformation coming from a president who needs to regroup after an equally embarrassingly bad debate is something only time will tell. However, we can rest assured President Trump will carry out his duties without disruption, meaning we will be inundated with his tweets from his exile quarantine.

COVID-19 Fact and Fiction #26

Posted by Lona Goudswaard at 12:54 am Politics

Sep 252020

Apparently, not only America’s leaders are telling porkies about the success of their pandemic interventions and compare them to the model the Swedes adapted. Their antipodal counterparts do much the same except that where the American Presiden refers to the Swede’s Modus of Operandi as an example worth following, the Australian PM uses the Swedish numbers of victims and deaths caused by the pandemic to contrast it with how well Australia is doing.

IS SCOTT MORRISON CORRECT IN SAYING THE NUMBER OF COVID-19 DEATHS IN SWEDEN IS 20 TIMES THOSE IN AUSTRALIA?

Summer in Stockholm (Reuters: Stina Stjernkvist)

While Sweden often cited in debates over how best to balance health and economic considerations in response to the coronavirus, Prime Minister Scott Morrison doesn’t think Australia should be following that country’s model of lax restrictions.

When he spoke on Australian Sky News this week, the Prime Minister said June quarter GDP showed Australia’s economy had experienced one of the “lowest falls of any developed country”.

“Our economy fell by 7 per cent. Devastating, absolutely devastating. But compared to the rest of the world, it was one of the lowest falls of any developed country,” Mr Morrison said.

“And when you look at our health results, both on the case incidents in Australia of COVID and the upsetting number of deaths that we’ve had compared to overseas, I mean, I know a lot of people on your program talk about Sweden. Well, Sweden has had a bigger fall in their economy and they’ve had almost 20 times the number of deaths.”

Indeed, Sweden’s economy tumbled 8.3 per cent in the June quarter, compared with Australia’s drop of 7 per cent. However, Mr Morrison’s claim that Sweden has had almost 20 times the number of deaths is wide of the mark.

According to data compiled by US-based Johns Hopkins University, Australia had recorded 859 COVID-19 deaths (as of September 23), while Sweden had suffered 5,870 deaths. While Sweden’s death count is much higher than Australia’s, it is only seven times the number of deaths seen in Australia.

While Mr Morrison referred to the number of deaths when comparing the two nations, a comparison of the rate of deaths in both countries more closely aligns with his claim.

On those figures, Sweden’s rate of deaths per million people is 576.62 compared with Australia’s rate of 34.37. That means the Nordic nation has suffered a death rate more than 16 times that of Australia.

So Scott Morrison could have been closer to a less exaggerated truth, had he known the difference between the number of deaths and the rate of deaths.

FROM WASHINGTON, D.C.

As the debate rages across the US about the worth of mandatory mask-wearing, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has come out strongly against a statement by the director of The Centers for Disease Control, Robert Redfield, who said that “face masks are the most important, powerful public health tool we have”.

Responding, Mr Meadows told reporters on September 17: “I will gladly wear my mask each and every day if that’s what makes the difference — and it doesn’t.”

“I think that even a Dr Redfield, Dr Fauci or anybody else would suggest that it is a mitigating effort, but it is not something that is designed to, to actually make sure that we don’t have the coronavirus spread.”

But fact-checkers at CNN’s Facts First found Mr Meadows’s claim that masks don’t make a difference to be false, and that both Dr Redfield and Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had “touted the role of masks in preventing the spread of coronavirus”.

“Per the latest estimates from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), universal mask usage would save 135,000 lives by January 1,” the fact-checkers noted.

They added that the CDC director had also said in July: “If we all wore face coverings for the next four, six, eight, 12 weeks, across the nation, this virus transmission would stop.”

** Even zombies wear masks.

COVID-19 Fact and Fiction #25

Posted by Lona Goudswaard at 5:23 am Politics

Sep 182020

Although the pandemic is far from over and probably not even nearing its peak, COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation are going in repeat mode with very few new ideas surfacing that need to be debunked. There are more than enough topics to look into and Fact-checkers are now looking to other sources where fact needs to be separated from fiction.*

I have scraped the bottom of the COVID-19 barrel of the last four weeks but have come up nearly empty for anything that is of interest outside Australia so I’ve decided to start with a short take on where so-called armchair experts on the Coronavirus could get it wrong.

NOW EVERYONE’S A STATISTICIAN: HERE’S WHAT ARMCHAIR COVID EXPERTS ARE GETTING WRONG

This article by Jacques Raubenheimer, a senior research fellow, Biostatistics, University of Sydney, appeared in The Conversation September 14^th 2020.

If we don’t analyse statistics for a living, it’s easy to be taken in by misinformation about COVID-19 statistics on social media, especially if we don’t have the right context.

For instance, we may cherry pick statistics supporting our viewpoint and ignore statistics showing we are wrong. We also still need to correctly interpret these statistics.

It’s easy for us to share this misinformation. Many of these statistics are also interrelated, so misunderstandings can quickly multiply.

Here’s how we can avoid five common errors, and impress friends and family by getting the statistics right.

It’s the infection rate that’s scary, not the death rate

Social media posts comparing COVID-19 to other causes of death, such as the flu, imply COVID-19 isn’t really that deadly.

But these posts miss COVID-19’s infectiousness. For that, we need to look at the infection fatality rate (IFR) — the number of COVID-19 deaths divided by all those infected (a number we can only estimate at this stage; see also point 3 [in the original article]).

While the jury is still out, COVID-19 has a higher IFR than the flu. Posts implying a low IFR for COVID-19 most certainly underestimate it. They also miss two other points.

First, if we compare the typical flu IFR of 0.1 per cent with the most optimistic COVID-19 estimate of 0.25 per cent, then COVID-19 remains more than twice as deadly as the flu.

Second, and more importantly, we need to look at the basic reproduction number (R₀) for each virus. This is the number of extra people one infected person is estimated to infect.

Flu’s R₀ is about 1.3. Although COVID-19 estimates vary, its R₀ sits around a median of 2.8. Because of the way infections grow exponentially (see below), the jump from 1.3 to 2.8 means COVID-19 is vastly more infectious than flu.

When you combine all these statistics, you can see the motivation behind our public health measures to “limit the spread”. It’s not only that COVID-19 is so deadly, it’s deadly and highly infectious.

I’ve copied the introduction and the first of the six points made in the article for this short take. Please click through here to read all about the misconceptions we may have about:

Exponential growth and misleading graphs

Not all infections are cases

We can’t compare deaths with cases from the same date

Yes, the data are messy, incomplete and may change

‘FREEDOM DAY’ PROTESTERS SPREAD MISLEADING IMAGES

Anti-lockdown advocates planning to protest Australia-wide tomorrow at an event they have dubbed “Freedom Day” have used old images to support their claims that a similar protest in Berlin last weekend attracted 5 million people and saw police join in solidarity, researchers at First Draft reported.

In one example, an administrator for the Facebook group Millions Rise for Australia, which had nearly 120,000 members before it was removed from the platform this week, used images from 2016 and 2018 alongside a caption telling law enforcement groups in Australia to “choose their side”.

While some of those commenting on the post appeared to believe the photos were of the recent Berlin protest, First Draft found that one of the images showed police at a far-right rally in the city of Chemnitz in 2018, while the other was taken in 2016 at a protest against transatlantic trade deals.

In another example, Sydney protest organiser Michael Simms shared an image of what AFP Fact Check identified as a 1997 music festival in Berlin alongside a caption suggesting 5 million protesters from “all over Europe” had gathered in the German capital for a “Unite the Freedom Rally”.

According to First Draft, reports put the crowd size in Berlin last weekend at between 18,000 and 38,000, while “Unite the Freedom” was the name of a protest held in London.

Meanwhile, a Facebook post from anti-vaccination group Australian Vaccination-risks Network, also suggests Berlin’s protest turnout was in the millions, this time using a crowd photo that accompanied a 2018 article about Brexit.

How many people will turn out for Australia’s “Freedom Day” protests remains to be seen, but in Melbourne, where strict lockdown restrictions mean protesters could be fined $1,652 for attending, police have vowed to “take action against anyone who shows up on the day”.

“The stage 4 restrictions make it very clear that people cannot leave their home in order to protest,” Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Luke Cornelius said at a media conference last week. “Organising and participating in this proposed protest would be a serious and blatant breach of the Chief Health Officer’s directions and it jeopardises the health of the entire community.”

Since then, Victoria Police have confirmed that multiple people involved in orchestrating the protest, including popular Facebook figure Fanos Panayides, have been arrested and charged with incitement.

FROM WASHINGTON, D.C.

A war of words has erupted between election hopefuls in the US, with President Donald Trump accusing Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden and running mate Kamala Harris of “undermining science and risking countless lives with reckless anti-vaccine rhetoric”.

But FactCheck.org found the claims that the two Democrats were against a vaccine to be false. Rather, both Mr Biden and Ms Harris have emphasised they are supportive of a safe and effective vaccine, but would not trust Mr Trump to ensure such standards.

“I will say that I would not trust Donald Trump,” Ms Harris said when asked if she’d receive a vaccine that was approved and distributed before the November 3 election. “It would have to be a credible source of information that talks about the efficacy and the reliability of whatever he’s talking about. I will not take his word for it.”

The fact-checkers also found that Mr Trump had exaggerated the progress of vaccine trials during a recent news conference.

While Mr Trump assured reporters that vaccine trials were progressing “very, very well”, and that one trial had met an enrolment target of 30,000 participants, FactCheck.org found that no vaccine company had yet reached that goal.

They added that due to the “double-blind” nature of the trials, in which the scientists and participants are kept in the dark through the process, “neither the president nor anyone within the companies or the [Food and Drug Administration] knows how well the vaccine is performing in the phase 3 trials so far”.

PREVIOUSLY FROM FROM WASHINGTON, D.C.

With President Donald Trump ramping up his “law and order” while campaigning ahead of November’s elections, US-based fact-checkers PolitiFact turned their attention to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, who claimed that COVID-19 posed a bigger threat to police than escalating street violence.

“More cops have died from COVID this year than have been killed on patrol,” he suggested in a speech delivered in Pittsburgh.

PolitiFact found the claim to be “mostly correct”, citing evidence from two sources that showed COVID-19 as the leading cause of work-related deaths for police in the US.

“Tallies of deaths by two national groups show that COVID-19 has killed more law enforcement officers than gunfire and other hazards of the job in 2020,” they concluded.

PolitiFact said it was unclear whether Mr Biden’s claim referenced other law enforcement officers such as corrections and detention officers who work in high-risk COVID-19 environments. But even with these groups excluded, the available data supported the claim.

EVEN EARLIER FROM WASHINGTON, D.C.

A misleading claim that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was forced to “admit that only 6 per cent” of reported COVID-19 deaths in the US were caused by the disease was removed by Twitter three weeks ago after being retweeted by President Donald Trump.

“This week the CDC quietly updated the Covid number to admit that only 6% of all the 153,504 deaths recorded actually died from Covid,” read the tweet, which was posted by a follower of the sprawling QAnon conspiracy theory.

“That’s 9,210 deaths,” the tweet said.

“The other 94% had 2-3 other serious illnesses & the overwhelming majority were of very advanced age.”

Fact-checkers at PolitiFact reported that the claim appeared to have originated on Facebook, with some posts referencing a data table published by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). That table contained figures, pulled from death certificates, relating to deaths from COVID-19 in combination with other conditions.

According to that data, COVID-19 was the singular cause of death listed on only 6 per cent death certificates.

But as NCHS chief of mortality statistics, Bob Anderson explained to AFP Fact Check, all deaths in the data table had COVID-19 listed as the underlying cause.

According to the fact-checkers: “Anderson clarified that while people can die of pneumonia they developed because of Covid-19, and both illnesses would be noted on their death certificate, their deaths are only counted once, as Covid-19.

“Often, comorbidities – when a disease or condition exists along with another disease or condition – are actually complications of Covid-19, Anderson explained.”

According to AFP, Mr Anderson also noted that listing only COVID-19 was a simplistic way of filling out death certificates, and was “not really appropriate” because “you rarely die of Covid-19 without it causing some type of complication”.

COVID-19 Fact and Fiction #24

Posted by Lona Goudswaard at 6:51 pm Politics

Aug 212020

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.*

The COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation market seems to have dried up completely now that social media are focussing on other areas such as politics, in particular the upcoming American Presidential election. As fact-checkers have their hands full with all the disinformation spread on this subject, this may well be the last regular edition in this series.

“THE DEATH RATE IS NOT BEING OVERSTATED” REVISITED

Conspiracy theorists suggesting the COVID-19 death rate has been artificially inflated have turned to a document produced by the Western Australia Coroner’s Court as evidence of government deceit.

The document, a guide for medical practitioners completing death certificates, describes a situation in which a death can be assumed to have been caused by COVID-19, even when a person has not been tested for the disease.

“Where a person is known to have suffered typical symptoms of COVID-19, such as fevers, cough, or breathing difficulties, during a COVID-19 pandemic, but has not been formally tested or diagnosed, then it is reasonable to ‘assume’ the death was related to COVID-19 and should be recorded on the death certificate,” it reads.

The document appears to be in line with advice on the classification of COVID-19 deaths issued by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, as well as international guidance provided by the World Health Organisation.

Both authorities stipulate that COVID-19 should be recorded on the death certificate of “all decedents where the disease caused, or is assumed to have caused, or contributed to death”.

In one example of a post on an anti-vaccination Facebook page which links to the WA document, a user declares: “There you go. COVID guide for medical practitioners. This is how deaths in Australia are faked as covid deaths.”

But while some Facebook users appear to view the document as a reason to lose confidence in official death statistics, the WA branch of the Australian Medical Association told Fact Check the guidance was consistent with normal practice when it came to assuming a cause of death.

“There is some assumption involved in most situations and that is reasonable,” Andrew Miller, the president of the AMA (WA), said in an email. “Where a medical practitioner cannot reasonably assume a cause of death, they consult the coroner’s office and an inquiry or inquest may result.”

According to Dr Miller, the AMA considered the circumstances described in the document as a reasonable threshold for labelling a death as having been caused by COVID-19 and were more concerned that COVID-19 deaths were being underreported rather than inflated. [emphasis mine]

Noel Woodford, the director of Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, told Fact Check that he “didn’t accept the premise” that there was an overreporting of COVID-19 deaths, and that doctors made clinical judgements “all the time” when it came to reporting causes of death.

He agreed with Dr Miller that underreporting of COVID-19 deaths was of more concern than overreporting. He noted, however, that the prevalence of COVID-19 in the community would affect how reasonable it would be for a medical practitioner to assume COVID-19 as a cause of death in the circumstances described by the document.

“If the prevalence is really low, then it’s not a reasonable assumption, because there are lots of other reasons that people could have a cough, and a fever, for instance,” he said. “But I would be surprised if a doctor wrote COVID on a death certificate without first having confirmation that COVID was in fact present, given the low prevalence of the disease in WA.”

He reiterated that cases, where a practitioner could not make a reasonable clinical assumption as to a cause of death, were referred to state coroners.

The very low number of COVID-19 deaths recorded in WA, just nine to date, would itself appear to contradict suggestions that numbers are being deliberately inflated.

A LESSON IN INTERNET POSTING AND MISINFORMATION FROM NEW ZEALAND

As New Zealand grapples with a new coronavirus outbreak after more than 100 days without any recorded community transmission, rumours, some of which evoke racist stereotypes, have been spreading as to the source of the outbreak.

One such rumour, since slammed during a news conference by Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, appears to have originated on Reddit when a user posted a list of dot points connecting unverified pieces of information.

The comment, which was picked up by right-wing groups who added racist remarks, suggested that a young woman had breached hotel quarantine in Auckland to visit a man who had recently arrived from Melbourne.

An interview with the man responsible for the original Reddit post, published by New Zealand journalist David Farrier, offers a fascinating look into how misinformation can quickly spiral out of control online.

The user, who fears he will lose his job over the incident, explained how he had heard rumours from friends and colleagues about an apparent breach of isolation.

“I made a poor decision to put that in writing on Reddit,” he said. “I realised a couple of hours later and removed it as much as I could, and by that stage, it had been used in screen shots.”

As noted later by the interviewer, Dylan Reeve, the Reddit user had done what many people do: “heard some rumours and ‘facts’ from a few places and put them all together”.

In this case, the initial online comment was used as the basis for a conspiracy theory rooted in racism which spread rapidly, earning a very public rebuke from the government.

According to Reuters, the New Zealand government said there was no evidence to support the theory posted online, but has not detailed an alternative explanation for the outbreak. Genomic testing is continuing.

GRAPHIC OF THE WEEK

With varying states of lockdown remaining in place across the country, and with Australians more aware than ever of good health and hygiene, the number of flu cases has fallen dramatically.

This graph, taken from the latest Australian Influenza Surveillance Report to be published by the Department of Health, shows laboratory-confirmed flu cases for 2020 (up to the week ending August 9) compared to previous years.

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

#40:

St John’s Wort
“St John’s Wort is a herbal remedy usually used as a treatment for depression. There is no evidence of it being used to treat or cure Covid-19. It can weaken the effect of life-saving medicines and cause dangerous side effects.” – F ull Fact

*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 #23

Posted by Lona Goudswaard at 1:40 am Politics

Aug 142020

The COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation market seems to be near saturation-point and fewer new debunkings are mentioned each week. Fact-checkers are now turning to other disinformation doing the rounds which aren’t pertinent to this series. Only one (Australian) story is worth mentioning, as it has been turned global by notorious conspiracy theorist David Icke.

NURSING HOMES DO NOT GET A PAID IF THEIR RESIDENTS DIE OF COVID-19

As has been reported for several weeks, Victoria had seen a surge in new cases which has led to a nearly full lockdown for the greater Melbourne area for six weeks.

The virus is particularly rampant aged-care homes, and the death toll in these homes is staggering by Australian norms. Australia had a total of 361 deaths to date, so a daily death rate above 14, with the highest at 19, is shocking. About 70% of these deaths are in aged care.

A post shared widely on Facebook claims that a caller to Sydney FM radio station The Edge told how his friend’s 79-year-old father, who was suffering terminal cancer, had his cause of death wrongly listed as COVID-19. This was supposedly for the nursing home in which he died to receive a payment from the Federal Government.

“The Australian govt is handing out $25,000 to all nursing homes who label covid as the main cause of deaths on death certificates,” the post states.

In another anecdote detailed in the post, a family was supposedly offered $9,000 by a nursing home to have their relative’s cause of death listed as COVID-19.

The post attracted the attention of former English footballer David Icke, who shared it on his website and also to his 350,000+ Twitter followers.

A spokeswoman for The Edge confirmed to Fact-check that such a call did take place on the morning of August 7, but that the caller claimed the $25,000 payment would be made to the family for funeral costs, rather than to the nursing home as suggested in the Facebook post.

“During the two-minute call, the hosts of the breakfast program were clearly surprised by the information that the caller provided, and were openly skeptical about its veracity,” the spokeswoman said. “One host referred to it as sounding like a conspiracy theory, also adding that he wouldn’t take the caller’s word on it.” She added that to avoid generating, disseminating or promoting misinformation the audio of the call was “not repeated on the station’s online, podcast or social media assets”.

In any case, there is no evidence that either the information provided by the caller or posted to Facebook are factual.

In an email, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health told Fact-check that “the comments made in the Facebook post are false”. Furthermore, “Australians are encouraged to rely on reputable and authoritative sources of information to help them make informed choices and stay up to date.

In a later email, a spokesman added that the department was not aware of any payment for funeral costs made to families of deceased COVID-19 victims.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services said that any payments to bereaved families or nursing homes would have to come from the Federal Government.

Sean Rooney, the CEO of Leading Age Services Australia (LASA), which is the national peak body representing all providers of age services across residential care, home care and retirement living, told Fact-check that aged care homes were “not being provided with payments for people who pass away with COVID-19”.

In an email, he said: “The comments that have been shared [on Facebook] are false and we encourage all people to rely on credible sources, such as the Department of Health and Leading Age Services Australia” and added that LASA was not aware of any disputes arising from the listing of cases of COVID-19 in aged care.

GRAPHICS OF THE WEEK

In a series of maps and graphs, news website Vox has depicted the extent of the COVID-19 outbreak across the US.

This map shows the percentage of tests returning positive in each state. In states such as Florida and Texas, more than 15 per cent of tests are returning positive results for COVID-19. By comparison, the positive test rate since January 22 in Victoria is 0.8 per cent.

Compared to some other countries in the world, the positive rate of the US is also striking.

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

#39: Vinegar
“There is no evidence that eating, drinking or washing with vinegar does anything to stop Covid-19.” – F ull Fact

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