Coronavirus update, 25/3 - Prince Charles Has Coronavirus
The PM In Your DMs: ScoMo's group text - young people at risk - more fake news debunked
Hello, welcome to ‘5+5: coronavirus edition’ for March 25. It’s another late-night one from me - sorry, but my new work from home routine today (worked an early shift, watched half a season of ‘Parks And Recreation’, fell asleep, ate an entire pizza, read 12 coronavirus articles I’d bookmarked) got me a bit sidetracked.
Each day I’m bringing you 5 big things to know, and 5 other bits, about the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak. I’ll be calling out misinformation and dodgy claims; sharing good news and bad news; giving you resources to do your own fact-checks, to not fall for shit, and keep abreast of the latest info — because who honestly has time to consume every bit of the fire hose of news that’s being blasted out every day?
You can email me at joshb2@protonmail.com or find me on Twitter at @joshbutler if you have tips, feedback, ideas or just want to chat. If I’ve made a mistake, shared something I shouldn’t have, or done something wrong, please tell me. I’ll be here.
Wash your hands and sneeze into your elbow. Practise physical distancing - at least 1.5 metres of separation. “Stay the fuck at home”.
5 BIG THINGS
Today’s statistics:
The latest stats from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering (as of 8.14pm Sydney time on 25/3) report 425,493 confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide. There have been 18,963 deaths, and 109,191 people have recovered.
[Note: if you prefer the World Health Organisation’s numbers, you can find those here — however, they’re only updating once a day, are often more than 24 hours old and the JHU numbers are coming more regularly.]
In Australia — the latest federal Department of Health stats (as of 3pm Wednesday) show 2423 cases, a jump of 287 since the day before. The death toll is now nine, after a 69-year-old man died in Queensland (story here). We’ve done more than 169,000 tests. This is the latest graph from the federal department, showing case numbers:
More baby formula fake news
I’d planned to bring this to you a few days ago, but approximately 200 breaking news stories and multiple late-night press conferences got in the way. There’s yet more racist fake news going around, and again it’s on claims of supermarket hoarding (our friend Cameron Wilson at BuzzFeed has already done a comprehensive piece on this, which you can read here). A few Facebook posts went very viral over the weekend, the standard copy-paste chain email style boomer post, claiming to be from a person “picking up exports and imports delivering them” around Melbourne. The post claims that they went to “a small factory in Footscray/Yarraville area” to find a “factory full with our food!!!” (Note the word “our”) The post claims it was “Chinese people buying up all our stock” including baby formula (of course), toilet paper, hand sanitiser, rice, you get the gist.
Giving the exact address and name of the supposed company in question, the post claims the workers at the factory were “sending it all to China” and asked readers "to “share the shit out of this”. The post was copy and pasted on multiple pages, and shared many thousands of times. It seems to link in with claims from home affairs minister Peter Dutton that “buses” of city folk were buying out country supermarkets, as well as videos claiming to show people of Asian appearance buying big. Except, as you’d know if you read recent issues of this fine publication, details about the buses are scant at best, and those videos are many months old.
So, what’s the go with this company? Well, a Twitter user said she reported the posts to Victoria Police, over fears that they could incite mob violence. Police investigated, and found that not only was there no substance to the claims, that they were straight-up “false”.
So, if you see this going around on your own networks, perhaps helpfully send the person a link to the Vic Pol statement.
(also, if you see anything dubious/dodgy/suspect going around online, you can always give me a tip and I’ll look into it — email joshb2@protonmail.com or DM me on Twitter @joshbutler)
Enter, Peter Dutton…
But at the same time as this was being debunked, Scott Morrison was saying the government was cracking down on the exact kind of behaviour outlined in the (fake) post. “We're putting in place arrangements that will make it an offence and we'll be able to seize at the border those who've engaged in profiteering by bringing together and making large purposes of various supplies in Australia and seeking to export them overseas,” the PM said last night, in typically verbose fashion (why use 10 words to say what you can in 45?).
He claimed “quantities of materials” including medical supplies were being hoarded and sent overseas, and said Dutton would “speak more to this”. Now, of course we want to make sure there’s adequate supplies of essentials here… but there’s been no news reports of this kind of thing, so I’d be very interested to see what this is all about
“That will be seized and redeployed to its best use here in Australia,” Morrison said.
Morrison’s group text
I planned to call this edition ‘A DM from the PM’. It’s not exactly accurate, because a text message isn’t precisely a DM, but look this is my thing and I stand by it. You almost certainly would have gotten a text from the government today (a mere 36 million reportedly went out) warning you to “stop the spread” with a few basic tips like staying 1.5 metres apart, washing hands and staying at home if you’re sick.
It’s great advice, and exactly what they were saying last week. Problem is, Morrison was out last night telling people basically to stay home unless they had no choice or had to do necessary stuff like grocery shopping or doctor’s visits… and most people didn’t see the 10pm press conference, and that message wasn’t in the text. Nor is it readily available on the aus.gov.au website the text links to. It’s very short — less than 160 characters. The brief message, while sharing good tips, surely could have been a little less brief — perhaps more along the lines of a similar message shared by New Zealand’s government today?
Young people at risk
In NSW, a few new things happened today. First, the state recorded its first child coronavirus cases, a two-month-old boy and a seven-year-old girl. Second, the 20-29 age bracket took the lead as having the most cases, with 190 of the state’s 1029 diagnoses — nearly 20 percent. Nationwide, women in that age bracket make up the biggest cohort of cases, according to the federal health department’s latest stats:
At the same time, Victoria confirmed one person in their 30s was currently among the small number of people hospitalised and on a ventilator.
Deputy chief medical officer Paul Kelly said the case was “a wake-up call. No-one is immune to this. Many of us will get sick from it.”
“This is not just about frail, elderly people, it's people in their 30s and 40s. There's international evidence that people have died much younger. That should be enough to motivate everybody to do the right thing,” VIC Premier Daniel Andrews said.
5 OTHER THINGS:
Prince Charles has coronavirus (story here)
The list of things banned in Australia is growing longer by the day (literally). More stuff got added in last night’s late press conference, from tattoo parlours to tanning salons. Full story here.
Speaking of which… Bindi Irwin did a rush wedding today to beat the new guidelines on weddings being limited to five guests (story here)
TheRuby Princess blame game continues. Border Force has firmly stated it’s a NSW government issue (story here). NSW seems to want to quickly move on. All the while the number of cases linked to the cruise continues to grow.
Dating app Bumble is telling users to try “virtual dates” instead of meeting IRL.
IMPORTANT EVERY DAY:
be hygienic; wash your hands properly, for at least 30 seconds with soap and water, multiple times a day (here’s how you need to do it, plus a handy Dr Karl video tutorial); sneeze and cough into your elbows; use hand sanitiser
Listen to only official information from the World Health Organisation and legitimate health bodies
World Health Organisation latest statistics here
Australian government latest statistics here
Don’t share dodgy stuff on Facebook. If it looks too good (or bad) to be true, it often is. Verify, fact-check, don’t be part of the misinformation problem
Signing off - stay safe, be healthy, look after yourself and others
Josh