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News article8 May 2020

COVID-19 media surveillance - 8 May 2020

This media surveillance collects articles reported through publicly available web sites.

Geolocations mentioned in coronavirus media reports showing large clusters of media reports
Geolocations mentioned in coronavirus media reports showing large clusters of media 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:

  • "Revealed: the secret report that gave ministers warning of care home coronavirus crisis" (theguardian)
  • "Travel From New York City Seeded Wave of U.S. Outbreaks" (nytimes)
  • "One of Trump's personal valets has tested positive for coronavirus" (cnn)
  • "Coronavirus survivors banned from joining the military" (militarytimes)
  • "Customer shot a McDonald's employee after being told to leave due to coronavirus restrictions, police say" (cnn)

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

El Diario, Infobae, El País, Okdiario, CNN (Spanish version), Clarin and RT (Spanish version) and Le Monde and Le Parisien were among the most mentioned Spanish and French sources, respectively.

Extracted Quotes

Antonio Guterres (United Nations, Secretary General):

"The pandemic continues to unleash a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scaremongering"; "Anti-foreigner sentiment has surged online and in the streets. Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have spread and Covid-19-related anti-Muslim attacks have occurred."

Lars Schaade (Germany, Vice-President of the Robert-Koch-Institute):

"It’s clear this virus cannot be eradicated in Germany"; "There’s consensus on that, at least until there’s a vaccine or a treatment. We will have to try to build this virus into our everyday lives, changing our behaviour to reduce its transmission. We find ourselves in a new normality."

Hans Kluge (WHO, Regional Director for Europe):

"Although data is scarce, member states are reporting up to a 60% increase in emergency calls by women subjected to violence by their intimate partners in April this year compared to last".

Fact Check

Fact checked: prevention

  • Fact checkers debunk claims that alkaline foods and vitamins prevent COVID-19 (boatos).
  • Similarly, they debunk claims that drinking seawater prevents COVID-19, pointing out that drinking seawater is actually harmful as it could cause diarrhea and gastrointestinal infections (colombiacheck).
  • Fact checkers debunk claims that the prolonged use of face masks causes hypoxia (afp).

Fact checked: fear mongering

  • Fact checkers debunk a photo claiming to show dead people on the streets of Ecuador - the photo actually shows a “die in” protest by environmental activists in Germany (afp).
  • Fact checkers debunk Spanish-language claims that 232 children died of COVID-19 in Italy in one day, reporting that since the first COVID-19 case was diagnosed in Italy on 30 January, there have been only two deaths in the pediatric population, and in both cases the children had previous pathologies (afp).

Fact checked: downplaying COVID-19

  • Fact checkers debunk a viral Tweet attributed to Brazilian General Augusto Heleno claiming that both he and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro had COVID-19 and barely showed any symptoms, while the media treat COVID-19 as “something that will end life on the planet”. Fact checkers report that the Tweet did not originate from General Heleno’s official Twitter account and that while the General did test positive to COVID-19, Bolsonaro maintains his tests came back negative (beatos, folha).

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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
8 May 2020