Coronavirus update, 27/3: United States cases explode, now #1
Corona porn; quarantine fines; and fake news responses
Hello, welcome to ‘5+5: coronavirus edition’ for March 27, and my first morning update in a few days (to borrow the words of the illustrious Stuart Robert, ‘my bad’). Who would have known that writing about coronavirus all day at work and then for several more hours a day in your free time could be unsustainable?? But nonetheless, we press onward!
Each day I’m bringing you 5 big things to know, and 5 other bits, about the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak — misinformation and dodgy claims; good news and bad news; resources to do your own fact-checks, to not fall for shit, and keep abreast of the latest info.
The fire hose of news being blasted out every day is getting more intense and confusing.
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 7.29am Sydney time on Friday) report 523,163 confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide. There have been 23,639 deaths, and 122,059 people have recovered.
The United States (82,404 cases) has just taken over from China (81,782) and Italy (80,589) as the country with most cases. More on those concerning figures below.
In Australia — the latest federal Department of Health stats (as of 6.30am Friday) show 2985 cases. The death toll is 13, after a handful of deaths in recent days. We’ve done more than 181,000 tests. This are the latest graph from the federal department, showing case numbers — and young women are still the biggest cohort of cases:
U-S-A! We’re number 1… in coronavirus cases
As mentioned above, the U.S. has just now (literally, while I was writing this) climbed to the top of the coronavirus case list. Of course America is nowhere near the top of the deaths list — currently 1178 deaths, according to JHU, compared with 8215 in Italy and 3291 in China— but is feared to become the true epicentre of crisis. Their numbers have skyrocketed faster than any other country, and Donald Trump doesn’t appear to be taking it as seriously as other leaders.
As countries worldwide head into lockdown, Trump has set the U.S. just a “15-day” stretch of action on coronavirus, and repeatedly said this week he wants the country back to normality by Easter, in mid-April.
That idea, compared to a two-month lockdown, would lead to 120 million infections, according to modelling from the New York Times.
It comes as Trump’s office sends cease and desist letters to TV networks running an ad critical of Trump’s response to the crisis, claiming his words were taken out of context. Here’s the ad, from Priorities USA, a Democratic party ‘super PAC’ which raises big money for liberal candidates:
Fine time
Police in Australia are enforcing quarantine and self-isolation orders for those people in coronavirus danger/risk. No more warnings. NSW Police said this morning that they fined a 65-year-old woman from Lake Macquarie $1000 after she failed to heed warnings to self-isolate, while a massage business was fined $3000 (and several employees $1000 each) for failing to abide by rules which compel their business to shut down. It’s happening. Listen to the rules. If you are told to, you must stay at home.
Police aren’t mucking around anymore. This blunt talk from Victorian police commissioner Graham Ashton, about a bank employee who allegedly lied about having the virus, should show you how much tolerance they’ve got at this point:
Fake news responses
I’ve been working on a feature about how Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are dealing with coronavirus misinformation, scams, hoaxes and fake news (there’s a lot of it going around). Their responses have been huge, unprecedented and very interesting — the story will be published here a bit later Friday. For a taster, Facebook and Twitter are each pouring money into mainstream media newsrooms to do coronavirus reporting, and FB is giving $2 million to fact-checkers, as well as banning ads from people trying to profit from face masks, toilet paper and bogus “cures”.
FB has also just this morning launched an Australian Information Centre for coronavirus; plus a Messenger info service too, to promote social connectivity and also “verify facts with trusted official sources” to avoid scams. If you use it, let me know what you think. Here’s what the info centre will look like:
And a good one! You’ll remember the baby formula “raiding party” video debunked last weekend? Well, Facebook is now flagging it as fake on pages which posted it, and linking to an AFP fact check.
Clicking ‘see why’ takes you to this screen:
Good areas.
BBC’s excellent lockdown PSAs
While Australia’s coronavirus messaging has been criticised by some as confusing, fractured and contradictory between state and federal governments, over in Britain, they’re talking plain. The BBC is running clips from classic series like The Thick Of It, The Mighty Boosh and The Alan Partridge Show, reminding people about the British lockdown and to be wary of virus spread. For instance, as The Telegraph reports, a clip from The Thick Of It shows Peter Capaldi’s character Malcolm Tucker ordering an office lockdown, with a message on screen reading: “Seriously, stay at home. Please help stop the spread.”
Here’s that ad now:
5 OTHER THINGS:
Coronavirus porn is a thing — reports Pornhub [link is SFW], “in the past 30 days, our statisticians recorded more than 9.1 million searches containing either ‘corona’ or ‘covid’.” In Italy, viewing went up 57% on March 12 after Pornhub made huge headlines for offering free premium subscriptions to people stuck in lockdown. In Spain, stats went up 38% when the same premium offer was extended to those in lockdown there. Worldwide, viewing is up compared to this time last month. Here’s what Australia’s stats look like — notice the stats going up from March 16, Monday last week, when many offices started sending people to work from home:
I spoke to an Italian-Australian health policy expert about what we can learn from the disaster unfolding in Italy. “A lot” was basically his answer. Read my story here
The world’s favourite working from home family is back, and this time, the kids are allowed to be there:
The Brits are clapping for their National Health Service:
You might have seen an Extinction Rebellion tweet or posters from the UK, claiming "corona is the cure, humans are the disease". The main @xrebellionuk account responded, initially claiming the @xr_east account was a fake page from "far right groups" or “white supremacists”; but other accounts later insinuated perhaps a member had gone rogue. In any case, the XR groups claimed the corona posts and messaging were “not in line with what XR believes or stands for”, instead sharing their official position statements on COVID, called #AloneTogether.
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