COVID-19 media surveillance

Geolocations mentioned in coronavirus media coverage showing large clusters of news reports in Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Greece, China and Japan. — 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

USA: more than 140,000 cases; USA could face 200,000 deaths and millions of cases according to NIAID director Fauci; social distancing extended through end of April
Italy: 97,689 cases and 10,779 deaths in total reported on 29 March 18:00; Albania sent 30 doctors and nurses
Spain: deaths continue to rise with 838 deaths reported on Sunday; lockdown extended to include all non-essential workers
France: patients from eastern France transferred by TGV to Bordeaux and by plane to Ulm
Cases in the vicinity of EU institutions: 1,702 new cases confirmed, 78 new deaths in Belgium; nearly 2000 cases and 21 deaths in total in Luxembourg
Poland: debate about presidential election on 10 May
Hungary: debate about new law to protect against coronavirus
UK: restrictions could last six months according to chief medical officer
Russia: Moscow went into mandatory lockdown with 1,000 cases reported
India: lockdown triggers exodus to rural areas as Prime Minister Modi defends the measures asking for forgiveness
Brazil: 4,256 cases and 136 deaths reported; President Bolsonaro is considering a regulation to allow citizens to return to work
Nigeria: lockdown in Lagos and the capital city of Abuja
South Korea: decrease in number of new cases, but clusters and imported cases remain a concern
Japan: travelers from the US, China, South Korea and most of Europe banned from entry; stocks fell due to fears of Tokyo lockdown; 2,578 confirmed cases, including 712 from cruise ship Diamond Princess, with 64 deaths
China: drop in new coronavirus cases with no transmission in Wuhan for sixth day; return to normalcy while maintaining the status
Economy: Remarks by Dutch Finance Minister Hoekstra made headlines; oil prices fall to 17-year low

Twitter

The most retweeted items were:

Japanese Comedian Ken Shimura died of COVID-19 (nhk)
A Spanish princess is the world's first royal to die from the coronavirus (insider)
Liberty University brings back its students, and coronavirus fears, too (nytimes)
The missing six weeks: how Trump failed the biggest test of his life (theguardian)

The following hashtags were on the rise:

#popefrancis as Pope Francis warned of a "viral genocide" in places where governments put the economy before people.

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

Okdiario, El País, Infobae and Russia Today (Spanish Version) and Le Parisien and Le Monde were among the most retweeted Spanish and French sources, respectively.

Extracted Quotes

Richard Horten (UK, Editor of The Lancet) :

"The UK Government’s Contain–Delay–Mitigate–Research strategy failed. It failed, in part, because ministers didn’t follow WHO’s advice to “test, test, test” every suspected case. They didn’t isolate and quarantine. They didn’t contact trace. These basic principles of public health and infectious disease control were ignored, for reasons that remain opaque".

Donald Trump (USA, President)

"If we can hold that number down ... to 100,000, it's a horrible number, maybe even less ... we all, all together have done a very good job".

Fact Check

Fact checked: fear mongering

Italy did not “surrender” to the coronavirus outbreak (boomlive).
Photos of people covered in blankets sitting on the roadside are not from coronavirus-hit Italy, but from earthquake-hit Croatia (thequint).
Italy’s Internet infrastructure is not about to collapse (pagellapolitica).

Fact checked: prevention and treatment

Drinking tea and eating bananas cannot prevent COVID-19 (animalpolitico, boomlive).
Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS) or sodium chlorite does not cure COVID-19 (maldita.es).
A Cuban drug has not cured over 1,500 coronavirus patients (efectococuyo).
It is not true that a COVID-19 vaccine that can cure patients in under 3 hours has been created (thequint).

Fact checked: conspiracy theories

The novel coronavirus is not a bioweapon (efectococuyo).

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EMM COVID-19 media surveillance - 30 March 2020

Contact

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

Details

Publication date: 30 March 2020

COVID-19 media surveillance - 30 March 2020