Skip to main content
EU Science Hub
News article13 August 2020

COVID-19 media surveillance - 13 August 2020

This media surveillance collects articles reported through publicly available web sites.

Geolocations mentioned in coronavirus media coverage showing large clusters of news reports.
Geolocations mentioned in coronavirus media coverage showing large clusters of news reports.
© European Union, 2020, EMM/MEDISYS

This media surveillance collects articles reported through publicly available web sites.

It is created with the Europe Media Monitor (EMM).

The selection and placement of stories are determined automatically by a computer program.

Headlines

Twitter

The following news were found among the most mentioned/retweeted items:

  • "The Trump Pandemic. A blow-by-blow account of how the president killed thousands of Americans" (slate)
  • "97,000 children test positive for coronavirus in just two weeks as US schools re-open" (themirror)
  • "States have authority to fine or jail people who refuse coronavirus vaccine, attorney says" (abc15)
  • "Government hired firm with links to Dominic Cummings to track tweets by UK citizens" (theneweuropean)
  • "Russia registers world's first coronavirus vaccine, President Putin's daughter vaccinated" (dnaindia)
  • "Argentina in the world's top 10 for daily deaths and about to surpass Sweden" (clarin)

The hashtags #russia, #putin and #russianvaccine were trending due to the announced Sputnik V vaccine (sputnikvaccine).

The most mentioned English sources were the New York Times, CNN, justthenews and the Guardian.

RT (Spanish Version), Clarin, Infobae, CNN (Spanish Version) and El Pais, and Le Monde and Le Parisien were among the most mentioned Spanish and French sources, respectively.

Extracted Quotes

Tony Blakely (University of Melbourne, Professor of Epidemiology):

"New Zealand gives a perfect example of what you do when a mystery case pops up and you want to maintain elimination or get to elimination — you go hard and you go early"; "Because you need to hit it that hard to get ahead of the virus and stop transmission and stamp out all cases, including both the ones you've been able to find where they come from as well as the silent mystery cases."

Fact Check

Fact checked: health-related claims

  • Fact checkers debunk legislation approved by the Bolivian Chamber of Deputies, “Citizens, and residents of the Bolivian territory, may use the Chlorine Dioxide Solution, as an alternative means, to prevent or treat the infection and the consequences caused by the Coronavirus (COVID-19)", reporting that public health officials worldwide warn of the dangers and life-threatening consequences of drinking chlorine dioxide (polygraph).
  • Fact checkers debunk claims that masks are ineffective in preventing coronavirus infections given that the virus can pass through the fibers of the mask (liberationchecknews).

Fact checked: downplaying COVID-19

  • Fact checkers debunk claims that COVID-19 tests cannot distinguish between COVID-19, the flu and common cold (aapfactcheck).
  • Fact checkers debunk claims that COVID-19 can be easily cured with aspirin (snopes).

Fact checked: anti-vax claims

  • Fact checkers debunk claims that the COVID-19 vaccine will introduce a 5G nanochip into people’s bodies (afpchecamos).
  • Fact checkers debunk claims that flu vaccines make children more vulnerable to coronavirus infections (afpfactcheck).

Fact checked: conspiracy theories

  • Fact checkers continue to debunk a video interview in which conspiracy theorist David Icke claims, among other things, that the coronavirus does not exist and the pandemic is staged (faktograf).
  • Fact checkers debunk claims that only 10 per cent of doctors believe the coronavirus is natural (observador).

Download PDF

2 FEBRUARY 2022
coronavirus_media_analysis_20200813hub.pdf
English
(319.83 KB - PDF)
Download

Contact

Mail to JRC-EMM-SUPPORTatec [dot] europa [dot] eu (subject: COVID-19%20media%20surveillance) (JRC-EMM-SUPPORT[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu)

Related Content

Europe Media Monitor (EMM)

Medical Information System - MEDISYS

JRC COVID-19 survey - have your say

Details

Publication date
13 August 2020