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News article18 June 2020

COVID-19 media surveillance - 18 June 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:

  • "England's 'world beating' system to track the virus is anything but" (nytimes)
  • "'They're in denial': How Trump's White House is ignoring the pandemic" (cnn)
  • "'Of course not': Fauci says he personally wouldn't attend Trump's Tulsa rally, citing coronavirus" (washingtonpost)
  • "US stockpile stuck with 63 million doses of hydroxychloroquine" (cnn)
  • "A group of 16 friends went out to a crowded Florida bar to celebrate a birthday have all tested positive for coronavirus" (cnn)
  • "Bolsonarista deputy who invaded hospital is suspected of having coronavirus" (diariodocentrodomundo)
  • "The Economist places Spain among the countries that reacted the worst to the coronavirus" (cope)

The hashtags #beijing and #dexamethasone were trending due to the outbreak linked to a food market in Beijing and the positive results of dexamethasone in a recent UK study, respectively.

In Germany, the hashtag #tönnies was trending due to a cluster of cases linked to a meat processing plant operated by the Tönnies company.

The most mentioned English sources were the New York Times, CNN, the Guardian, the Washington Post and BBC.

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

Extracted Quotes

Michael Ryan (WHO, Executive Director):

"It is important to put this on the table: This virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities, and this virus may never go away"; "HIV has not gone away — but we have come to terms with the virus".

Fact Check

Fact checked: health-related claims

  • Fact checkers debunk claims that the WHO has closed the “corona file” and that all measures taken to counter the spread of the coronavirus will be suspended since it was discovered that asymptomatic carriers cannot infect others. While the first part of the claim is completely false, the second part seems to be based on a statement by a WHO epidemiologist who did say that asymptomatic carriers rarely spread the disease. However, WHO later retracted the statement and clarified that while 6-41% of infected people may not show symptoms, many of them may transmit the disease (afpfactuel).
  • Fact checkers debunk claims that the coronavirus does not affect people with O positive blood type, reporting that while some research suggests that people with O positive blood type have a lower risk of infection than those with other blood types, it is incorrect to say that people with O positive blood type do not get COVID-19 (vishvasnewsfactcheck).

Fact checked: anti-vax narratives

  • Following the annual meeting of the association of Russian doctors against compulsory vaccination, fact checkers debunked several claims about vaccines in general and a potential COVID-19 vaccine in particular, such as claims that a COVID-19 vaccine will be rolled out without any prior testing since it would take several decades to test the vaccine (factcheck.kz).

Fact checked: conspiracy theories

  • Brazilian fact checkers debunk claims that the Governor of São Paulo signed a contract with a Chinese company to develop a vaccine against the new coronavirus in August 2019, reporting that the contract was signed on 10 June 2020 (aosfatos).

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Contact

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

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Details

Publication date
18 June 2020