COVID-19 media surveillance - 12 November 2020

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: New Covid-19 cases top 140,000, a record high for daily count
• India: Delhi's Covid-19 cases spike as temperatures drop and pollution rises
• Brazil resumes CoronaVac trial after pause over 'adverse event'
• Spain will require a negative PCR test from travelers coming from more than 60 countries after 23 November
• France: Lockdown measures will stay in place for at least two more weeks
• Italy reports deadliest day in six months as country grapples with second wave
• Germany: Scientists from BioNTECH claim that vaccine could potentially end pandemic
• The European Commission approved a contract for the supply of the Covid-19 vaccine being developed by Pfizer and BioNTech
• Denmark: Potential vaccine candidate in Denmark has shown early signs of success against COVID mink mutation in early testing
• Belgium’s new Covid-19 cases continue to drop, deaths rise to 190 per day
• Luxembourg reported more than 700 new cases and 5 deaths
• Greece comes under tougher lockdown restrictions on Friday as cases surge
• Portugal expands Covid-19 curfew and weekend lockdown to more areas
• Sweden: surge in cases dashes immunity hopes
• UK: Covid-19 cases hit new daily high with 33,470 infections
• Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine allegedly reaches 92 % efficacy according to an interim analysis
• New Zealand partially shuts central Auckland over mystery Covid-19 case
• South Korea imposes fines for people not wearing face masks in public facilities as daily cases stay in triple digits for fifth consecutive day
• China is inoculating thousands with unapproved Covid-19 vaccines
• Japan: health experts warned that a third wave of Covid-19 cases is hitting Japan as daily cases hit record

Twitter

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

• "Pfizer and BioNTECH announce an agreement with US government for up to 600 million doses of mRNA-based vaccine candidate against SARS-COV-2" (pfizer)
• "One in five COVID-19 patients develop mental illness within 90 days – study" (reuters)
• "FDA Authorizes Eli Lilly Antibody Drug. The treatment yields positive results for those infected at an early stage, but cannot be administered in already hospitalized patients" (elpais)
• "President-elect Biden announces coronavirus task force made up of physicians and health experts" (washingtonpost)
• "Sen. Kelly Loeffler sold at least $18 million more in stocks before the coronavirus crash than previously reported" (vox)

The hashtags #pfizer and #biontech trended after promising results from clinical trials were announced.

The most mentioned English sources were the New York Times, CNN, Reuters, the Washington Post and Fox News.

Libertad Digital, El Diario, RT (Spanish Version), El País, and Libre Mercado, and Le Monde and Le Parisien were among the most mentioned Spanish and French sources, respectively.

Fact Check

• Fact checkers debunk a Polish-language video claiming to prove the ineffectiveness of rapid coronavirus antibody tests. In the video, a man sprinkles a test with juice and then shows the test to be positive. Fact checkers, however, report that such tests take about 15 minutes to provide results, and argue that the test must have been positive before being sprinkled with juice (faktograf).
• Fact checkers address articles with headlines such as “CDC study: 71% of those who contracted COVID-19 wore a mask all day”, noting that while the CDC study is real, the data is misrepresented, leading to misinformation about the use of masks (poligrafo).
• French fact checkers address claims that the ICU occupancy rate reported by Macron is false as it is much higher than it is in reality, reporting that the figure includes all serious cases, both in ICU and in monitoring units. Fact checkers, however, clarify that the hospital overload is undeniable (lemondelesdecodeurs).
• Fact checkers report that a World Doctor Alliance video claiming that there is no pandemic and COVID-19 is as dangerous as the flu is being shared on social media as a video featuring WHO experts (factly).

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