Skip to main content
EU Science Hub
News article16 April 2020

COVID-19 media surveillance - 16 April 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:

  • After anonymous tip, 17 bodies found at nursing home hit by virus (nytimes)
  • Putin’s long war against American science (nytimes)
  • March 2020 was the first March without a school shooting in the U.S. since 2002 (cbsnews)
  • Bill Gates, in rebuke of Trump, calls WHO funding cut during pandemic ‘as dangerous as it sounds’ (washingtonpost)

The hashtags #worldhealthorganization, #who and #oms are trending following Donald Trump’s decision to halt funding to WHO.

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

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

Extracted Quotes

Antonio Guterres (United Nations, Secretary General):

"We know the pandemic is having profound social, economic and political consequences, including relating to international peace and security"; "We see it, for example, in postponement of elections or limitations on the ability to vote, sustained restrictions on movement, spiraling unemployment and other factors that could contribute to rising discontent and political tensions."

Tedros Adhanom (WHO, Director General):

"WHO is reviewing the impact on our work of any withdrawal of U.S. funding and we will work with partners to fill any gaps and ensure our work continues uninterrupted".

Angela Merkel (Germany, Chancellor):

"If we allow more public life in small steps now, it is very important that we can follow the infection chains even better"; "It must be our goal to be able to track every infection chain".

Fact Check

Fact checks: misinformation about public authorities

  • Fact checkers debunk the story of a German lawyer who taken to a psychiatric facility by the police for fighting coronavirus restrictions - the lawyer was taken to a psychiatric clinic for unrelated reasons (tagesschau).
  • Fact checkers debunk the story that Boris Johnson never contracted COVID-19 (fullfact).

Fact checks: prevention

  • Fact checkers debunk claims that watered-down mouthwash is an effective substitute for hand sanitiser (thejournal).

Fact checks: conspiracy theories

  • Fact checkers dismiss claims that there is a link between 5G wireless technology and the novel coronavirus (faktograf).
  • Fact checkers say it is not true that 5G antennas were set on fire in the Italian town of La Spezia (demagog).
  • Fact checkers debunk claims that the coronavirus outbreak was predicted by a Netflix series (correctiv).

Download PDF

2 FEBRUARY 2022
coronavirus_media_analysis_20200416hub.pdf
English
(328.18 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

Details

Publication date
16 April 2020