COVID-19 Fact and Fiction #4

 Posted by at 3:40 am  Politics
May 052020
 

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.*

TO CREATE OR NOT TO CREATE

Image source:  Facebook

Fact-checkers at AAP, AFP and Snopes debunked social media posts which claimed Tasuku Honjo, Nobel Prize winner in Physiology and Medicine in 2018, said the novel coronavirus was “not natural”, as it spreads in both hot and cold climates, and that it was”manufactured in China”.

Professor Honjo was quoted in these posts as having said: “I have done 40 years of research on animals and viruses. It is not natural. It is manufactured and the virus is completely artificial.”

Fact-checkers at AFP were unable to find any record of Professor Honjo making these remarks, and the professor himself issued a statement saying he was “greatly saddened that my name and that of Kyoto University have been used to spread false accusations and misinformation”.

 

ANOTHER PRESIDENT LIES

Image source: AP Photo/Alexander Joe

According to the BBC, President Andry Rajoelina of Madagascar officially launched an unproven herbal remedy by claiming the tea had already cured two people in the country, prompting people to queue for their supply of the free beverage.

According to Mr Rajoelina “This herbal tea gives results in seven days.”

But the World Health Organisation doesn’t recommend “self-medication with any medicines … as a prevention or cure for COVID-19” and in a report, the Bangkok Times, authored by AFP, has the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention note: “There is no scientific evidence that any of these alternative remedies can prevent or cure the illness caused by COVID-19. In fact, some of them may not be safe to consume.”

 

MASKS UNMASKED

Image source: Facebook

An infographic, purporting to show the effectiveness of face masks, claims a healthy person wearing a mask has a 70 per cent chance of being infected with the coronavirus by a sick person not wearing a mask. When mask-wearing is reversed, the apparent “contagion probability” falls to 5 per cent. When both healthy and sick people are fitted with masks, the chance of the healthy person of being infected is supposedly just 1 per cent.

Fact-checkers at Snopes and Reuters found that the information was mostly false**, as there was no scientific consensus of the efficacy of face masks nor data to support the quoted percentages. It was also unclear whether the post referred to surgical masks, homemade masks or N95 respirator masks.

However, as reported by Snopes, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that masks helped by “strengthening the social distancing that we are already doing”.

** The infographic made its appearance on Politics Plus too but with the footnote that the commenter who posted it could not vouch for the accuracy.

 

NO COVID-19 VACCINE YET

Image source: Facebook

Fact-checkers at Full Fact and factcheck.org have debunked a post shared on Facebook that falsely suggests a vaccine exists for the novel coronavirus.

In the post, a caption accompanying the photo of a vaccine vial states: “Now this was 2001 tell me why 19 years later they say there is no vaccine.”

However, the label on the vial clearly states “canine coronavirus vaccine”.

As may be known by now, coronaviruses are a family of viruses. The current outbreak relates to the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19.

According to Full Fact: “Canine coronavirus doesn’t affect people, [but dogs] and is a gastrointestinal disease, not a respiratory one.”

 

NOT MADE IN CHINA EITHER

Image source: Twitter

A video in France has been shared with a misleading caption suggesting the faulty gear was made in China.

One version of a video, showing brand new medical gowns disintegrating in France, has been shared on Twitter and retweeted more than 250 times, is captioned: “Protect our doctors & nurses by not buying medical supplies from bloody #China!”, AFP Fact Check has found

But a spokesperson of the hospital featured in the video told AFP that the gowns were not made in China. Rather, they were French-made gowns that had been damaged while in storage in a humid place.

AND FROM WASHINGTON D.C.

US President Donald Trump’s recent claim that the US had done more testing for COVID-19 than “every country combined” has been rubbished by fact-checkers at factcheck.org.

When Mr Trump claimed on April 28, the US had carried out almost 6.03 million tests for the disease, which indeed is more than any other country but not more than all other countries combined, with more than 25 million tests administered outside the US.

When related to its population, the US is lagging behind other countries with 20,940 tested per million compared to for example 24,733 tested per million in Australia. Mr Trump may be aware of this and wants to conduct a suggested 5 million COVID-19 tests per day. However, the top US official in charge of testing, Admiral Brett Giroir, said that was not feasible with the current technology.

“There is absolutely no way on Earth, on this planet or any other planet, that we can do 20 million tests a day, or even five million tests a day,” Time magazine reported the testing czar as saying.

In its 56-page “roadmap” for a return to normalcy, a Harvard University study had suggested the US would need to conduct at least 5 million tests a day by early June, and 20 million per day by late July, something Giroir claimed was “an Ivory Tower, unreasonable benchmark”.

 

THE R NUMBER

Authorities in Germany and many other countries like Australia are paying very close attention to the rate of the spread of COVID-19, using the reproduction number or ‘R’ value as an important reference. The number indicates how many people one person with the virus can infect. For instance, if the rate is equal to 1, it means that one person is infecting – on average – one other person. Mary Colombel explains the logic behind the number.

 

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

#20: Aspirin with lemon juice and honey

“While some home remedies may provide comfort and alleviate symptoms of COVID-19, there is no evidence that current medicine can prevent or cure the disease.”– A spokesperson for the World Health Organisation, Philippines, as quoted by Rappler

 

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

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COVID-19 Fact and Fiction #3

 Posted by at 2:51 am  Politics
May 012020
 

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.*

AUSTRALIA’S TRUMP AND HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE

Australian billionaire businessman and former federal MP Clive Palmer took out back-to-back full-page advertisements in the Murdoch press this week announcing that his foundation had purchased 32,900,000 doses of the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine and that he’s donating them towards Australia’s fight against COVID-19.

In his advertisements, Mr Palmer implied that there is a link between a decision taken by Health Minister Greg Hunt four weeks ago to make hydroxychloroquine available to doctors who are treating COVID-19 patients and Australia’s death rate since then from the virus. Mr Palmer claimed that it was the “lowest in the world” while acknowledging “the [infections] curve has flattened”. The Australian government, however, credited the low infection and death rates to basic hygiene measures.

Hydroxychloroquine received global attention after US President Donald Trump tweeted that it would be a “game-changer” in the fight against the coronavirus, based on small, preliminary trials in China and France, and maintained that the federal government had purchased and stockpiled 29 million pills of the drug. Since then Mr Trump’s attention has shifted first to internal cleansing with antiseptics and now to Remdesivir, an anti-viral drug, something Mr Palmer seems not to have caught up with.

As for hydroxychloroquine, Australian Medical Association federal vice-president Zappala said the published evidence remained “very mixed” and it was unclear whether the drug would be effective beyond its current approved limited use, which includes treatment of lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. In a recent US study, researchers essentially found a higher death rate in patients treated with hydroxychloroquine alone, while the drug also risked serious side effects, especially for people with pre-existing heart conditions.

Some background to Clive Palmer may make his actions a little clearer. Billionaire Palmer has iron ore, nickel and coal holdings;  by 2019 his estimated wealth had increased to A$4.09 billion. Besides mines, Mr Palmer owns real estate and several golf courses.

Mr Palmer created the Palmer United Party in April 2013, winning the Queensland seat of Fairfax in the 2013 Australian federal election and sitting as an MP for one term. During that term, he was the least-attending MP.

In 2009, he bought Queensland Nickel and the Palmer Nickel and Cobalt Refinery when it was about to be closed. In the first year after purchasing the refinery, Palmer gifted staff 50 Mercedes Benz cars and thousands of overseas holidays after the refinery turned a huge profit. On 18 January 2016, Queensland Nickel went bankrupt. Palmer refused to pay the entitlements of workers who lost their jobs, stating that “I have no personal responsibility, I retired from business over three years ago”. He also blamed the administrators for sacking the workforce. This forced the Federal Government to cover the workers’ entitlements.

In 2018 Clive Palmer tried to return to politics as a Senator in the Federal Parliament. He did not succeed but by pumping millions in campaign ads, he made sure the Labor Party lost its foothold in Queensland and the election. At the moment, Labor has a slim majority in Queensland’s State Parliament; in November new elections will be held in Queensland but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is unclear what form they are going to take. But one thing is clear: Clive Palmer has donated 32,900,000 doses of the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine to Australia…

 

WAR ON BILL GATES

Microsoft founder, philanthropist and world’s third-richest man Bill Gates has the subject of a overwhelming volume of misinformation related to COVID-19. It started in January with claims the Gates Foundation had predicted 65 million deaths in a pandemic simulation (it didn’t) and have been followed with claims that a Gates Foundation-funded vaccine paralysed nearly 500,000 children (also false) and that Mr Gates is being sued by India (wrong again).

In another example, a Facebook post claimed Mr Gates was freely able to prescribe drugs. However, given Mr Gates is not a medical doctor, the claim was rated false by fact-checkers at Lead Stories. Mr Gates is also not trying to “microchip” the world’s population through a coronavirus vaccine, nor is he using invisible tattoos and monitoring bracelets to track Americans.

And the Gates Foundation, despite helping the vaccine search with up to $250 million in funding, doesn’t hold a patent for such a jab.

 

FACEBOOK PRACTICES ARE STILL LACKING

In the same week that Mark Zuckerberg boasted that his company had “taken down hundreds of thousands of pieces of misinformation related to COVID-19”, reporters at The Markup were allowed to place ads on both Facebook and Instagram targeting an ad category of 78 million users who were deemed interested in pseudoscience, “advantage of this sort of vulnerability that a person has once they’re going down these rabbit holes, both to pull them further down and to monetise that”, according to Kate Starbird, a professor at the University of Washington.

Facebook has since removed the pseudoscience category from its ad manager.

NewsGuard, an online trust tool, also found Facebook’s misinformation-fighting practices to below par, identifying 31 Facebook pages, with an audience of 21 million people, as “super-spreaders” of coronavirus misinformation spreading “blatant misinformation”, even where there was evidence of coordinated inauthentic behaviour, which violates Facebook’s policies.

 

FROM AMERICA, STILL

Image source: Facebook

Trump supporters have taken to social media to defend his musings that “powerful light” and disinfectant could be used to kill the novel coronavirus inside human bodies.

One such Facebook post claims that Mr Trump was referring to “Ultraviolet Radiation” administered into the body when he talked of internal disinfectant. “Just because it’s called a ‘disinfectant’ doesn’t mean it’s Pine-Sol,” it claimed. “Ultraviolet Radiation” is a method that kills bacteria and has been “used for a while now”, according to the post.

PolitiFact found that while the post may be referring to a treatment called “ultraviolet blood irradiation”, used mainly in the alternative-medicine community, there was no evidence such treatments could kill viruses or bacteria.

 

FROM WASHINGTON, D.C.

According to Politico, a report by the US State Department warned that Russia, China and Iran were using the coronavirus pandemic to launch a “disinformation onslaught” against the US by echoing one another.

Messages spread by the three include that the coronavirus is an American bioweapon, that the Chinese response to the virus was superior to that of the US, and that the US economy wouldn’t be able to handle the crisis, and they were pushed by state-run media outlets, as well as governments themselves. In one example, a website run by the Russian Defence Ministry is said to have promoted a conspiracy theory that Bill Gates had a hand in creating the virus.

The State Department reported the coronavirus pandemic had accelerated the convergence of disinformation narratives.

 

 

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

#19: : Herbs and spices such as oregano, licorice, elderberries and fennel “Some of these purported [COVID-19] remedies include herbal therapies and teas. There is no scientific evidence that any of these alternative remedies can prevent or cure COVID-19.” The National Institutes of Health (US), as quoted by Reuters

 

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

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COVID-19 Fact and Fiction #2

 Posted by at 12:36 am  Politics
Apr 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.

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.*

SHE’S ALIVE

Image source: News Break NG

Elisa Granato, one of the first recipients of a trial vaccine for COVID-19 at the University of Oxford, has been the subject of false reports that she had died shortly after receiving the vaccine last week, Full Fact and Reuters have found.

However, Dr Granato (she’s a scientist herself) tweeted at the weekend that she was “doing fine” while the university stated in response to a Reuters’ query which confirmed that she was “alive and well”. The UK Department of Health and Social Care also tweeted that the news was “completely untrue”.

Dr Granato is one of the 800 participants who will either receive the trial vaccine or a control vaccine as part of the study.

ANTI-VAXXERS ON THE WARPATH AGAIN

Image source: Facebook

The Facebook post, which was shared in the US, Canada and Australia, offered advice on “how to legally decline a vaccine” but has been debunked by fact-checkers at AFP and Lead Stories.

The post suggests people should ask whether a vaccine (and presumably any future COVID-19 vaccine) contains “MRC-5” and whether it this could lead to an “iatrogenic reaction”. If the doctor administering the vaccine answers in the affirmative, as their Hippocratic Oath compels them, then a person apparently has the right to decline. “This is how we can legally (and respectfully) decline their offered mandated services and there is absolutely NOTHING they can do about it!”

But AFP found that while there were ways to refuse a vaccine legally in either the US, Canada or Australia, they were not those listed. For example, some Australian states mandate vaccinations for children enrolling in childcare or school, however, the vaccination itself is not compulsory and people maintain the right to choose whether to receive a vaccination.

 

SCAMMED

In Australia, digital scammers are using the coronavirus pandemic to con them into buying goods, sharing personal information and installing malicious software on their computers. This may well be the case in other countries too.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) says that since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, it has received more than 1000 reports of bogus coronavirus-related schemes by scammers impersonating banks, retail stores, and the Tax Office, while the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) has warned of scams involving fake Post emails.

In one case study detailed by the centre, a US-registered cyber attacker managed to send text messages to Australian phones looking as if to have come from official ‘myGov’ sources. The link in the message led to a website hosting a banking Trojan known to target Android phones to steal personal financial information.

 

FROM AMERICA

Image source: YouTube: Fox News

Comparisons between the coronavirus and various causes of death have been rife around the world with commentators, politicians and CEOs pushing for economies to reopen and for a return to business-as-usual.

One such comparison was made by TV’s “Dr Phil” — real name Phil McGraw —claiming during a Fox News interview that 45,000 Americans die every year in road accidents, 480,000 from smoking and 360,000 in swimming pools. The first two numbers were correct but, in reality, only 3,709 drowned in 2017, including those people who drowned in natural bodies of water and baths, not just swimming pools. An overstatement US by almost 10 times the actual figure, as PolitiFact found.

However, these apples-and-oranges comparisons are beside the point according to Arthur Caplan, the founding head of the division of medical ethics at the New York University School of Medicine.
“The issue isn’t how many people die of car crashes or swimming pool accidents or strokes or whatever. The question is whether they all happen at once and overwhelm the healthcare system.”

Given the massive amount of attention already given to Mr Trump ponderings whether disinfectant could be injected into the body to kill off the virus, or whether “very powerful” light could be a potential treatment, I will refrain from a detailed debunking of his suggestions here.

 

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

#18: A few drops of hydrogen peroxide in the ear canal “This does not sound plausible. Liquids won’t penetrate the eardrum. In fact, it seals off the middle ear and prevents that from happening. Some drugs can be absorbed through the skin, but hydrogen peroxide is not one of them.” Dr Mark Prince, quoted by Lead Stories

 

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

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COVID-19 FACT AND FICTION #1

 Posted by at 2:25 am  Politics
Apr 232020
 

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.*

RACISM

Image source: Twitter through RMIT ABC Fact Check

A video of an altercation over a repeat of a surplus purchase of tins of baby formula in a Melbourne Big W store that went viral is now being used to spread a claim that Chinese nationals have been banned from Australian supermarkets, according to AFP Fact Check. But in these times of fear for the coronavirus, the video is now being shared alongside false claims that “Chinese are banned in Australia[n] supermarkets”.

A spokesperson for Woolworths told AFP they welcomed anyone wishing to shop at their stores while a Coles spokesperson said the claims were “absolutely untrue”.

ANTI-VAXXERS ALREADY ON THE WARPATH

Image source: Twitter through RMIT ABC Fact Check

Scientists are rushing to develop a coronavirus vaccine and may be on the brink of testing it on humans, so anti-vaccination campaigners have taken to social media to spread misinformation and fear.

One claim, that seven children died after being vaccinated against COVID-19 in Senegal, has been comprehensively debunked by at least six independent fact-checking organisations; PolitiFact, Lead Stories, Snopes, Reuters, factcheck.org and AFP Fact Check all found the claim, made in the voiceover of a video shared on Facebook, to be false. A spokeswoman for Senegal’s health ministry also rejected the claim as “fake news”.

The video contains news footage of an incident in Senegal which never happened, in which two people were allegedly arrested for falsely claiming they were health ministry officials, there to vaccinate children. In reality, it was a man selling cosmetics door to door, arrested after joking that he had vaccines while wearing a health ministry T-shirt.

Anti-vaxxers are taking advantage of people who only follow news on Facebook and Twitter and who are oblivious to the fact that scientists are only on the verge of testing possible vaccines and that no one is being vaccinated at this point.

YOU CAN CUDDLE YOUR PETS

Image source: Facebook through RMIT ABC Fact Check

A Facebook post suggested that hand sanitiser contains ethylene glycol, which is found in antifreeze and is toxic to humans and animals. But hand sanitizers sold in Australia contain 60 to 95 per cent alcohol in the form of ethanol or isopropyl alcohol and a small amount of some other chemicals. A hand sanitizer would only be dangerous to pets if they licked the hands of someone who had just applied the rub, something most animals would be averse to doing unless they like alcohol.

AND THEN THERE’S RUSSIA

Researchers at Myth Detector in Georgia have determined that the bulk of coronavirus misinformation and disinformation, such as stories that the virus was man-made in the US, that the EU had “abandoned” Italy, and that only authoritative countries like Russia and China could handle the outbreak, which is spreading throughout the country is political and being spread by “openly pro-Russian” news websites.

BRITISH CONSPIRACY THEORISTS

Rumours have appeared online that the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson didn’t have the disease he says he’s now recovering from.

One post, shared widely, claims staff at the hospital where Mr Johnson was treated were forced to sign the “Official Secrets Act”. Two doctors apparently refused to do so and said they didn’t believe the Prime Minister was actually ill. But that post was originally written as satire, according to fact-checkers at Reuters, who spoke to the author. Full Fact also found the post to be based on satire.

But the truth doesn’t seem to matter and the rumour that the PM faked his illness continues to spread on Twitter.

Things that don’t cure and/or prevent COVID-19**
  • #1: Boiled orange peels with cayenne pepper are NOT an effective treatment for Coronavirus. – Lead Stories
  • #2 Drinking and gargling water: “It’s incorrect to suggest that people who have COVID-19 could cure themselves (either during this initial period or at any other time) by drinking water or gargling.” – Full Fact
  • #3 Bathing in hot water: “Taking a hot bath will not prevent you from catching COVID-19.” – The World Health Organisation
  • #4 Tea: “At present, there is absolutely no evidence or data to support the claim that tea can cure coronavirus.” – Dr Neeraj Jain, as quoted by The Quint
  • #5 Bitter gourd (bitter melon): “This message is false, there is no such information issued by Bihar health department nor there is any evidence that bitter gourd juice can cure COVID-19.” — Dr Naveen Chandra Prasad, quoted by BOOM
  • #6 Drinking hot liquids and avoiding ice cream: “Neither drinking hot liquids nor eating cold foods will have a bearing on the body’s core temperature, so would not affect the chances of fighting off the virus.” — Reuters
  • #9 Alcoholic drinks: “False reports are circulating that say drinking alcohol can reduce the risk of COVID-19. THIS IS NOT TRUE.” — Saint Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City, quoted by Rappler
  • #10 Garlic: “Garlic is a healthy food that may have some antimicrobial properties. However, there is no evidence from the current outbreak that eating garlic has protected people from the new coronavirus.” — World Health Organisation
  • #11 Putting antibiotic ointment up your nose: “It’s an antibiotic, not an antiviral and does not have activity against viruses.” — Dr Carrie Kovarik, an associate professor of dermatology at the University of Pennsylvania, quoted by AP
  • #12 Cannabis: “Killing coronavirus is not included in the known benefits of cannabinoids.” — As listed by the US government’s National Institutes of Health, Rappler
  • #14: Silver solution (colloidal silver): “Often [colloidal silver] is peddled as an immune-boosting, disease curing dietary supplement, but there is no scientific evidence to back up these claims.” – PolitiFact
  • #17: Tonic Water and Zinc: “There is no scientific evidence that tonic water and zinc can prevent or treat COVID-19. As of mid-April 2020, there is no specific treatment or vaccine for the illness.” – Reuters

*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.

** I’ve gathered all the “things” from previous issues I could find, but #13, 15 and 16 seem to have disappeared from the internet. In future posts, I will only report on any new myths.

 

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