COVID-19 media surveillance - 4 March 2021

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

• US: President Biden promised enough coronavirus vaccine for ‘every adult in America’ by the end of May; roll-out of single-shot Johnson & Johnson jab has started in the US
• UK: New Covid-19 strain identified in the UK with 16 cases discovered so far
• Brazil: Health officials are urging nationwide lockdowns and curfews as hospitals run short of ICU beds and more than 1,000 deaths are registered each day
• Spain: more than 85% of Spain’s care home residents have now been fully vaccinated according to Health Ministry
• French PM Castex has announced new measures to curb the spread of the virus in France
• Portugal recorded 28 deaths related to Covid-19, the lowest value since 27 October
• Ireland: Health officials are investigating four stillbirths potentially linked to Covid-19
• Germany’s vaccination committee has reversed its guidance not to administer the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab to over-65s in light of new studies proving the vaccine’s efficacy
• Belgium justifies non-essential travel ban until 1 April in letter to Commission
• Luxembourg: The number of Covid-19 infections is continuing to rise in Luxembourg, with a further 5% increase in new cases last week
• Israel, Denmark and Austria agree on joint vaccine development; 88% of Israelis aged 50+ have been vaccinated or recovered from COVID-19
• India records spike with over 17,000 new cases; India's Covaxin vaccine has an efficacy rate of 81%, preliminary data from its phase 3 trial shows.
• Nigeria received on March 2 nearly 4 million vaccine doses through the Covax initiative
• Australia: a shipment of 250,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine destined for Australia has been blocked in Italy
• New Zealand has third day with no new Covid cases
• Chinese officials dismiss concerns of vaccine diplomacy as vaccine diplomacy in Central Asia is discussed
• Japan: over 230 cases of new coronavirus variants confirmed in Japan

Twitter

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

• "CoronaVac has low neutralizing action against Brazilian variant of Covid, says study" (gazetabrasil)
• "Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine may not work as well if you're fat, researchers say. Scientists in Italy claims their research shows that obese people - anyone with a BMI over 30 - may need bigger doses, or another top-up jab, to protect them against Covid-19" (mirror)
• "Texas becomes biggest US state to lift COVID-19 mask mandate" (apnews)
• "Republicans are least likely to want the coronavirus vaccine" (axios)

The most mentioned English sources were the New York Times, AP news, Axios and Reuters.

El Confidencial, El Diario and El Libre Mercado, and 20minutes and Ouest France were among the most mentioned Spanish and French sources, respectively.

Misinformation

320 articles from unverified sources were selected forming 8 supernarratives over the last week:

Fact Check

• Fact checkers debunk claims that reports to the UK’s Yellow Card scheme suggest that the AstraZeneca vaccine is not safe, reporting that while the scheme has collected reports of adverse health events following vaccination, none of the deaths or serious events so far appear to have been caused by it (fullfact).
• Fact checkers address claims that US “health officials push pregnant women to get COVID shots, despite known risks”, reporting that pregnant women can choose whether or not to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and that there is no support for the claim that COVID-19 vaccines pose a danger to pregnant women (healthfeedback).
• Fact checkers address claims that COVID-19 vaccines cause infertility, reporting that loss of fertility has not been reported among thousands of trial participants nor confirmed as an adverse event among millions who have been vaccinated (factcheck.org).

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Contact

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

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