COVID-19 media surveillance - 3 September 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.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) remains a mayor news topic, with 80 thousand articles per day on Wednesday (in 70 languages, as detected by MEDISYS).

Headlines

• U.S. won’t join international vaccine effort because WHO is involved; the U.S. has urged states to get ready for a potential vaccine rollout two days before the presidential election
• Brazil exceeds 4 million cases and 123,000 deaths
• Hungary closed its borders to foreigners and Hungarians returning from abroad have to go into quarantine
• Spain’s health minister rules out new lockdown and Madrid perimeter confinement as daily cases rise to 8,581
• France recorded more than 7,000 cases in 24 hours for the third consecutive day
• Italy reported 1,397 daily cases while former premier minister Berlusconi tested positive
• Germany: The German government slammed the "unacceptable" behaviour of protesters during a mass rally against coronavirus restrictions in which hundreds were arrested and some attempted to storm the Reichstag parliament building
• Belgium: average daily numbers continues to drop slightly to 440 new cases per day
• Luxembourg: 58 pupils in quarantine at International School of Luxembourg
• Russian Health Minister said that mass vaccination of high risk groups in the country against COVID-19 would begin in November-December while Russia’s virus cases exceed 1 million, 4th highest globally
• South Africa healthcare workers protest and threaten strike as cases exceed 625,000
• India records nearly 84,000 cases in biggest one-day jump as tally goes past 3.85 million
• Thailand reported its first locally transmitted case in 100 days
• Australia on Thursday reported the biggest one-day rise in cases in more than a week; Tasmania has extended its state of emergency for two months
• New Zealand reported two new cases, one of which is due to community transmission
• South Korea: Critically ill virus patient numbers soaring amid fall in new cases
• Hong Kong finds six cases from China-backed testing blitz
• Japan will lift entry ban on foreigners, as the country looks to rebuild its economy: Tokyo confirms 141 cases as infections appear to slow

Twitter

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

• "U.S. says it won’t join WHO-linked effort to develop, distribute coronavirus vaccine" (washingtonpost)
• "New Trump pandemic adviser pushes controversial ‘herd immunity’ strategy, worrying public health officials" (washingtonpost)
• "It has come to this: Ignore the C.D.C. The agency’s new guidelines are wrong, so states have to step up on their own to suppress the coronavirus." (nytimes)
• "U.S. coronavirus rates are rising fast among children" (nytimes)
• "Twitter deletes claim minimizing coronavirus death toll, which Trump retweeted" (washingtonpost)

The hashtags #neymar and #berlusconi were trending following news about their positive test results.

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

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

Fact Check

• Fact checkers debunk a claim that wearing face masks causes lung infection (pesacheck). In addition, they also debunk a statement that masks could cause Legionnaires’ disease (pesacheck).
• One of the statements from unverified sources mentioned above, related to the narrative of downplaying the pandemic, is also debunked by fact checkers: “CDC did not ‘admit only 6%’ of recorded deaths from COVID-19” (factcheck, healthfeedback).
• Fact checkers debunk a claim that the WHO’s test kits will find a positive result in all humans (healthfeedback).
• Fact checkers debunk a Facebook post claiming that the French government approved hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 treatment (pesacheck).
• Fact checkers debunk an Iranian preacher’s claim that eating salt protects from coronavirus better than wearing a mask (polygraph).
• Fact checkers debunk a claim related to the abbreviation “COVID-19”, which, according to social media, stands for “certificate of identification of vaccination with artificial intelligence” (politifact).
• Facebook posts claiming that a vaccine could not fight the virus “because a virus must “run its course”, are debunked, claiming that “trials for a COVID-19 vaccine are underway around the world” (reuters).
• A claim spread on Facebook that a vaccine against COVID-19 would be useful even if the survival rate from COVID-19 is high, was debunked as ‘misleading’ (healthfeedback).
• False claims about biotech company Moderna along with a claim that Dr. Fauci was its first CEO were debunked by fact checkers (reuters).
• A social media claim, retweeted by US President Trump, stating thatthe US CDC cut the national COVID-19 death toll by 94%, is debunked by fact checkers (boomlive).
• Fact checkers debunk a claim, present also among the unverified selection above, that the WHO tests for COVID-19

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