Apr 242024
 

Yesterday, I got an email from Katie Porter (not that that’s unusual.) We all know ahe will no longer be in Congress after 2024 is over. But this kind of makes it real, Since she will no longer be campaigning for herself, but only for her PAC, “Truth to Power,” she is liquidating all of her campaign merchandise. There are Tshirts, sweatshirts, socks, hats, lapel pins, key chains, and other stuff, including an actual whiteboard. I ordered her kitchen kit to remember her by (it’s something I will actually use. I use keychains, but already have so many.)  I expect the store to be open, but with either more general merch, or merch for particular candidates, as opposed to merch tied to Katie.

It’s about time that someone made this so clear that most people should be able to see it. (Of course there are always some who can’t – or won’t.)

Talking Points Memo has done a striking summary of the first day of the trial (do I need to say which trial? I didn’t think so) in several sections. Even if you already know most of it, it’s a good summary (and has good links – the ones which aren’t paywalled.)

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May 242022
 

Yesterday, Colorado Public Radio News published thefirst photo of the first bud (at leasst in eighty years) on the Camp Amache rose. It is pink. I cropped the photo so it would fit here. I was deeply touched.   I’m looking forward to seeing it after it opens.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

CPR News – Why two CPR News journalists are in Europe with Colorado’s National Guard
Quote – Colorado’s Army and Air National Guard units are just some of the 1,200 Guard members from six states — Maryland, which has a state partnership with Estonia, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania and West Virginia — taking part in this exercise. In total, more than 3,400 U.S. military and 5,100 allied service members are spending this month participating in Defender and various other exercises, with names like Swift Response, Iron Wolf, Flaming Thunder and Summer Shield, across Eastern Europe…. Now, the U.S. military will be the first to tell you that Defender is unrelated to what’s happening in Ukraine (and the former Foreign Service officer in me would agree with that). American troops rotate, train and exercise regularly across the region as part of the nation’s relationship with Europe…. Yet, this annual exercise has taken on added significance — to reporters like me, and readers like you, and possibly the people of Estonia too — because of what’s happening in Ukraine.
Click through for story. It’s a good day to be a Coloradan Despite Lauren Boebert (and Doug Lamborn), we have reasons to take pride in our state. (And it has some gorgeous phptps pf Tallinn.)

The Conversation – He’s Australia’s 31st prime minister. So who is Anthony Albanese?
Quote – To continue the slow burn theme, if Albanese is to be believed, his ambition for leadership formed late. Those who reach leadership positions are typically consumed with an aspiration for the top job from early in their parliamentary careers — if not before. They are fuelled by a sense of their own prime-ministerial destiny. Albanese is different. On his telling, it was only in 2013, on the defeat of Rudd’s second government, that he first entertained thoughts of becoming leader. Until then he had contented himself with the role of “counsellor and kingmaker”.
CLick through for background. I won’t promise that this will be my last article on the Australian election – I hadn’t planned having another one, but I think this has merit. I am convinced that the so-called “fire in the belly” which so many pundits say leaders need is actually a bad thing if one wants the best possible leadership.

NM Political Report – In light of drought, NM congresswomen introduce bills focused on water and science
Quote – “We know that our farmers and our communities are struggling to meet their water needs,” U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury, a Democrat representing the state’s 1st Congressional District, said during a press conference on Thursday. “And the pieces of legislation that we introduced this week will be game changers to help address those needs, put resources into the hands of our communities, and to address the long term water security of our communities.”
Click through for details of the proposals.  Of course we all knew that getting the right women into the right offices would be beneficial to everyone.

Food For Thought

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May 232022
 

Yesterday, I woke up before the alarm went off, and just stayed up, since I knew the weather could be problematic. It actually turned out not to be. there was no snow or ice or even frost on the windows – a couple of drops of rain was all. I took my time driving, the roads were almost all dry, and the short spots where they were not (bridges ot dips) were only wet, not icy. Virgil was a litttle short of sleep … and so was I. But we enjoyed each other’s comapny. And I got home as easily as I went down. (However, I wouldn’t be surprised if, when you see this, I am actually still asleep, even if you get to it later than usual.)

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

truthout – Judge Blocks Biden from Ending Title 42 in “Arbitrary, Racist” Ruling
Quote – Human rights advocates say Title 42 forces people legally seeking asylum in the United States into perilous situations in Mexican border cities, where Human Rights First has identified nearly 10,000 violent attacks on migrants. “Beyond the devastating humanitarian impact of Title 42, the court’s ruling also fails to recognize well-established domestic and international law,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. “Seeking asylum is a legal right, and yet this bedrock of the American legal system is quickly eroding at a time of unprecedented need.”
Click through for an explanation at least in part why the immigration authorities at the southern border are still doing such a – (cough) – such a rotten job. It isn’t all on Biden by a long shot (granted that some of it is).

Reuters – Analysis: Australian women unleash new political force on climate, integrity
Quote – Women who left successful careers in business, medicine and media to enter politics as independents were on track to win five seats from Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s Liberal party in its affluent urban heartland in Saturday’s general election, as moderate voters abandoned the government…. Personifying the disruptive change were centrists, mostly women, dubbed “teal” candidates because of teal-coloured marketing material used as they targeted seats held by Morrison’s conservative party.
Click through for full analysis. Lona did such a good job of summarizeing the election results in her comment (scroll down) that I thought I’d use this article, since it’s more about something new than general politics.

Crooks and Liars – Cassidy: Our Maternal Death Rates Only Bad If You Include Black Women
Quote – “About a third of our population is African American; African Americans have a higher incidence of maternal mortality. So, if you correct our population for race, we’re not as much of an outlier as it’d otherwise appear,” Cassidy said in an interview with POLITICO. “Now, I say that not to minimize the issue but to focus the issue as to where it would be. For whatever reason, people of color have a higher incidence of maternal mortality.”
Click through for story. Can you believe this? Not his thinking it, tha’s nrmal for Republicans, but presumably not realizing what kind of blowback he would get from it?

Food For Thought

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Nov 132020
 

It’s a tired day here in the CatBox.  I did not sleep well last night.  I texted with Nameless at suppertime and early this morning.  He is feeling much better and is off the BIPAP machine.  He hopes to be released on Sunday, and their current best guess is that he has atypical pneumonia.  Please keep him in your thoughts, best wishes and prayers.  Tomorrow please expect no more than a brief Personal Update from me.  It’s a WWWendy day, and we have a notary service coming to finalize my will.  TGIF!!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:08 (average 5:13).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoons:

It’s That Day Again:

Short Takes:

From Crooks and Liars: Turnbull said the media giant had delayed global action to address climate change by turning scientific fact into an issue of “values or identity” and countries were “paying the price”.

Source: The Guardian

Malcolm Turnbull says News Corp has become an organisation for “pure propaganda” that has done enormous damage through its promotion of climate change denial.

In a heated exchange on Monday night’s Q+A, the former prime minister and the Australian’s editor-at-large, Paul Kelly, clashed over the media organisation’s treatment of climate science.

 

Turn about is Fair play. We’ll take Lona, and Oztralia can have Murdoch back!  RESIST!!

From The New Yorker: President-elect Joe Biden could obtain all the classified intelligence he needs simply by hanging out in the public dining room at Mar-a-Lago, members of the international espionage community recommend.

“Biden shouldn’t worry about getting official intelligence briefings,” a foreign spy, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. “He should just reserve a table at Mar-a-Lago, and he’ll hear everything he needs.”The spy offered his own methods for obtaining classified intelligence as a possible roadmap for the President-elect. “Get a table near Trump, order an omelette, and turn on your recorder,” he said.

Dang Andy! This isn’t satire. It’s true!  RESIST!!

From YouTube (Late Show Channel): Michael Moore: Joe Biden’s Presidency Will Be The Polar Opposite Of The Last Four Years

 

Michael Moore is representative of the most progressive segment of the left. For him to recognize how much closer a centrist like Biden is to us than he is to Trump* sets an example we should all follow instead of whining that Biden isn’t progressive enough.  RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast at the Reich): When The President Talks To God

This is certainly appropriate for Crawford Caligula, Fuhrer of the Fourth Reich, for whom it was written.  How much more does it apply to the Fuhrer of the Fifth Reich, Trump*?  Neither of them talk to God.  They talk to Republican Supply-side Jesus, the polar opposite of the real Jesus.  RESIST!!

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Oct 082020
 

The world is dealing with an unprecedented health crisis caused by a new virus. With new insights in the way COVID19 spreads, in the way the virus behaves and in the way to deal with the pandemic every day, it is now more important than ever to safeguard the information we share is accurate and fact-based.

This article is not based on information of fact-checkers but it is a so-called Short Take from an article published today on the SCIENCE section of ABC News on how COVID-19 disinformation is used to attack Beijing by a group that has strong ties to Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former White House Chief Strategist.

Although the article on the ABC News site is written for Australia, the connections to the US and China warrant it to be noted in this series as yet another way COVOD-19 is used in political strategies. I urge you to read the full article on the ABC News site.


Anti-Beijing group with links to Steve Bannon spreading COVID-19 misinformation in Australia

ABC Science By technology reporter Ariel Bogle and Iris Zhao

Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and Chinese businessman Guo Wengui have joined forces on a number of media platforms. (Getty Images: DON EMMERT/AFP)

When Christine’s mother asked her for help printing political pamphlets about COVID-19, it took her by surprise.

She already knew her mum belonged to a new political group that aims to take down the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Christine expected the fliers might be pro-US President Donald Trump or anti-Chinese Government.

She didn’t expect that they would contain COVID-19 health misinformation.

“I was pretty disgusted,” Christine said. “I didn’t actually know it was misinformation that could be harming people.”

Christine says her mother is involved with the New Federal State of China movement, which operates in Australia in part under the name Himalaya Australia.

The movement was launched on June 4 this year — the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre — by controversial Chinese businessman Guo Wengui and former White House strategist Steve Bannon.

Now it appears to be growing its activity in Australia. In recent weeks, pamphlets with a Himalaya Australia logo have turned up in letterboxes across Australia, while at the same time the group has grown its online presence.

A pamphlet with the Himalaya Australia logo found in a Sydney postbox.(ABC News: Supplied)

 

Donald Trump used his return to the Oval Office yesterday to promote the experimental cocktail of drugs he received during his treatment for COVID-19, while warning China will pay a”big price for what they’ve done” to the United States.

Coincidence? With many Twitter accounts besides Mr Guo’s own media platforms regularly sharing anti-CCP and pro-Trump posts and videos, the movement has a global reach.

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Oct 022020
 

The world is dealing with an unprecedented health crisis caused by a new virus. With new insights in the way COVID19 spreads, in the way the virus behaves and in the way to deal with the pandemic every day, it is now more important than ever to safeguard the information we share is accurate and fact-based. We have to inoculate ourselves against the fake news and misinformation that infect our newsfeeds and timelines at this crucial moment by fact-checking.*


Most fact-checking issues stem from Australia again, this week, but because the disinformation is spread through social media, it soon is spread to the rest of the world where some start to lead a life of its own.

 

ANOTHER ‘CLAIM’ ABOUT THE ‘TRUE’ COVID-19 DEATH RATE DEBUNKED

An image posted to Facebook misrepresents the findings of a Federal Government report (Supplied)

The world surpassed more than 1 million COVID-19 deaths, yet claims that the “true” death rate of the disease is far lower than officially reported have started to circulate again. The latest example on Facebook asserts that an Australian Federal Government report “proves with its own evidence the 29 August deaths were not 600”.

“The true COVID deaths are only 54!”, states the post, which was shared by a user known as “Political Posting Mumma” who has 20,000 followers.

The image points to a page of the Government’s 22nd COVID-19 Epidemiology Report, which supposedly indicates that just 9 per cent of reported COVID deaths were essentially caused by the disease.

However, the page of the report cited in the post does not refer to COVID-19 deaths but discusses COVID-19 cases admitted to Australian hospitals, either in general wards or intensive care units. For those cases, the report found all but 9 per cent suffered from one or more comorbidities in addition to COVID-19.

Referring to COVID-19 deaths, a table in the report shows that 80 per cent of patients who died in hospital, and for whom data was available, had suffered one or more comorbidities.

When a similar claim about over-reported deaths went viral in the US a few weeks ago, fact-checkers found that although COVID-19 was listed on death certificates as the sole cause of death in just 6 per cent of fatalities attributed to the virus, that didn’t mean the coronavirus didn’t cause or contribute to the remaining 94 per cent of deaths.

As FactCheck.org explained, death certificates list “any causes or conditions” that contribute to a person’s death.

“In the case of COVID-19, the disease often causes other serious conditions, such as pneumonia or acute respiratory distress syndrome,” the fact-checkers said. “The underlying cause of death, however, is the condition that started the chain of events that led to a person’s death.”

A spokesman for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told FactCheck.org that in 92 per cent of all deaths that mention COVID-19, the coronavirus was listed as the underlying cause of death.

“So, it’s misleading to say that 94 per cent of those who died with COVID-19 also had other ailments without explaining that the disease causes other serious illnesses. And it’s wrong to claim that only 6 per cent of the recorded COVID-19 deaths were caused by the disease,” the fact-checkers concluded.

 

VICTORIA’S PREMIER DANIEL ANDREWS IS NOT OUT AND ABOUT WITHOUT A MASK

A Facebook post showing a maskless Daniel Andrews (Supplied)

“Dan not wearing a mask, not social distancing,” reads the post, which was shared by a page titled “Melbourne Detective – Private Investigator”, showing an image taken from a TV report first screened in August, which shows Victoria’s Premier Andrews without a mask and not social distancing with little context, leading some users to assume the image is current and comment:

“They lead by example,”

“Do as I say not as I do, HYPOCRITICAL,”

The image shared to Facebook does appear to have been drawn from a recent news report, but that it is simply stock footage, taken at a 2018 news conference held at Melbourne Polytechnic, long before the COVID-19 pandemic led to mandatory mask-wearing and a call for 1.5-metre buffer zones between people. Images and video of the same event were published by SBS (via AAP), The Australian and the Herald Sun.

 

MELBOURNE’S LOCKDOWN IS NOT THE MOST SEVERE IN THE WORLD OUTSIDE OF WUHAN

Tony Abbott’s claim about Melbourne’s lockdown was wrong (AAP: Bianca De Marchi)

Speaking in London earlier this month, Australia’s former prime minister Tony Abbott claimed coronavirus restrictions in Victoria constituted the “most severe lockdown tried anywhere in the world outside of Wuhan itself”.

Fact-check this week found Mr Abbott’s claim to be wrong.

Many governments adopted individual policies similar to Victoria’s such as curfews and stay-home orders. Some rules were even stricter. Spain and Argentina banned outdoor exercise entirely while Israel limited walks to within 100 metres of home.

Chile allowed only twice-weekly shopping trips, and both South Africa and India banned the sale of alcohol. Whereas New Zealand prohibited takeaway food and drinks, Victorians could at least still visit their local cafe to pick up a coffee.

Melbourne wasn’t alone when it came to quarantining buildings either; the German city of Göttingen and several Indian cities sealed off apartment blocks too.

Additionally, at the time of Mr Abbott’s claim, Victoria had not endured the longest lockdown. Melburnians had by then spent 31 days under the state’s toughest stage 4 restrictions. However, the residents of greater Buenos Aires had been stuck at home for 166 days straight and Santiago’s lockdown lasted 94 days — and was even longer for seniors.

Nine countries had kept strict, countrywide stay-home orders in place for at least 50 days running. That included Honduras, whose lockdown stretched for 159 days.

According to a comparative “stringency index” developed by academics at Oxford University, 14 countries achieved the maximum possible score for the overall severity of their lockdowns. Fact-check has calculated that the state’s coronavirus restrictions would not have fallen within the maximum range.

By Fact-check’s estimate, 37 countries scored the same as – or higher than – Victoria at various times during the pandemic. Of those, 21 had sustained those scores for longer than Victoria’s stage 4 lockdown when Mr Abbott made his claim.

 

FROM WASHINGTON, D.C.

US fact-checkers spent all of Tuesday night checking the myriad claims from the first US presidential debate between incumbent Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden ahead of the November 3 election.

On the topic of the coronavirus, PolitiFact found that a claim made by Mr Biden regarding Mr Trump’s handling of the pandemic lacked context.

While Mr Biden claimed the President had “no plan” for the pandemic, the fact-checkers found that while public health experts have said Mr Trump did not have a plan for national coronavirus testing, his administration had announced a plan for distributing vaccines.

In contrast, the President’s claim that his campaign rallies had not had a “negative effect” in regards to COVID-19 was rated false by the New York Times.

“At least eight campaign staff members who helped plan President Trump’s indoor rally in June in Tulsa, [Oklahoma], including members of the Secret Service, tested positive for the coronavirus, either before the rally or after attending,” the Times said.

The Times also found Mr Trump falsely claimed the Obama administration’s response to swine flu (H1N1) was a “disaster” and that his assertion that “we are weeks away from a vaccine” went against the advice of top health officials, who say a widely-available jab is months away.

BREAKING NEWS

US President Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump both test positive for COVID-19, but the President will continue carrying out his duties without disruption while quarantining, says his doctor. (ABC news)

Whether this is an extremely embarrassing fact or disinformation coming from a president who needs to regroup after an equally embarrassingly bad debate is something only time will tell. However, we can rest assured President Trump will carry out his duties without disruption, meaning we will be inundated with his tweets from his exile quarantine.

 

*The facts in this article are derived from the Australian RMIT ABC Fact-check newsletters which in turn draw on their own resources and those of their colleagues within the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), of which RMIT ABC Fact-check is a member.

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Sep 252020
 

The world is dealing with an unprecedented health crisis caused by a new virus. With new insights in the way COVID19 spreads, in the way the virus behaves and in the way to deal with the pandemic every day, it is now more important than ever to safeguard the information we share is accurate and fact-based. We have to inoculate ourselves against the fake news and misinformation that infect our newsfeeds and timelines at this crucial moment by fact-checking.*


Apparently, not only America’s leaders are telling porkies about the success of their pandemic interventions and compare them to the model the Swedes adapted. Their antipodal counterparts do much the same except that where the American Presiden refers to the Swede’s Modus of Operandi as an example worth following, the Australian PM uses the Swedish numbers of victims and deaths caused by the pandemic to contrast it with how well Australia is doing.

 

IS SCOTT MORRISON CORRECT IN SAYING THE NUMBER OF COVID-19 DEATHS IN SWEDEN IS 20 TIMES THOSE IN AUSTRALIA?

Summer in Stockholm (Reuters: Stina Stjernkvist)

While Sweden often cited in debates over how best to balance health and economic considerations in response to the coronavirus, Prime Minister Scott Morrison doesn’t think Australia should be following that country’s model of lax restrictions.

When he spoke on Australian Sky News this week, the Prime Minister said June quarter GDP showed Australia’s economy had experienced one of the “lowest falls of any developed country”.

“Our economy fell by 7 per cent. Devastating, absolutely devastating. But compared to the rest of the world, it was one of the lowest falls of any developed country,” Mr Morrison said.

“And when you look at our health results, both on the case incidents in Australia of COVID and the upsetting number of deaths that we’ve had compared to overseas, I mean, I know a lot of people on your program talk about Sweden. Well, Sweden has had a bigger fall in their economy and they’ve had almost 20 times the number of deaths.”

Indeed, Sweden’s economy tumbled 8.3 per cent in the June quarter, compared with Australia’s drop of 7 per cent. However, Mr Morrison’s claim that Sweden has had almost 20 times the number of deaths is wide of the mark.

According to data compiled by US-based Johns Hopkins University, Australia had recorded 859 COVID-19 deaths (as of September 23), while Sweden had suffered 5,870 deaths. While Sweden’s death count is much higher than Australia’s, it is only seven times the number of deaths seen in Australia.

While Mr Morrison referred to the number of deaths when comparing the two nations, a comparison of the rate of deaths in both countries more closely aligns with his claim.

On those figures, Sweden’s rate of deaths per million people is 576.62 compared with Australia’s rate of 34.37. That means the Nordic nation has suffered a death rate more than 16 times that of Australia.

So Scott Morrison could have been closer to a less exaggerated truth, had he known the difference between the number of deaths and the rate of deaths.

 

FROM WASHINGTON, D.C.

**

As the debate rages across the US about the worth of mandatory mask-wearing, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has come out strongly against a statement by the director of The Centers for Disease Control, Robert Redfield, who said that “face masks are the most important, powerful public health tool we have”.

Responding, Mr Meadows told reporters on September 17: “I will gladly wear my mask each and every day if that’s what makes the difference — and it doesn’t.”

“I think that even a Dr Redfield, Dr Fauci or anybody else would suggest that it is a mitigating effort, but it is not something that is designed to, to actually make sure that we don’t have the coronavirus spread.”

But fact-checkers at CNN’s Facts First found Mr Meadows’s claim that masks don’t make a difference to be false, and that both Dr Redfield and Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had “touted the role of masks in preventing the spread of coronavirus”.

“Per the latest estimates from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), universal mask usage would save 135,000 lives by January 1,” the fact-checkers noted.

They added that the CDC director had also said in July: “If we all wore face coverings for the next four, six, eight, 12 weeks, across the nation, this virus transmission would stop.”

** Even zombies wear masks.

*The facts in this article are derived from the Australian RMIT ABC Fact-check newsletters which in turn draw on their own resources and those of their colleagues within the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), of which RMIT ABC Fact-check is a member.

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Sep 182020
 

The world is dealing with an unprecedented health crisis caused by a new virus. With new insights in the way COVID19 spreads, in the way the virus behaves and in the way to deal with the pandemic every day, it is now more important than ever to safeguard the information we share is accurate and fact-based. We have to inoculate ourselves against the fake news and misinformation that infect our newsfeeds and timelines at this crucial moment by fact-checking.

Although the pandemic is far from over and probably not even nearing its peak, COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation are going in repeat mode with very few new ideas surfacing that need to be debunked. There are more than enough topics to look into and Fact-checkers are now looking to other sources where fact needs to be separated from fiction.*


I have scraped the bottom of the COVID-19 barrel of the last four weeks but have come up nearly empty for anything that is of interest outside Australia so I’ve decided to start with a short take on where so-called armchair experts on the Coronavirus could get it wrong.

NOW EVERYONE’S A STATISTICIAN: HERE’S WHAT ARMCHAIR COVID EXPERTS ARE GETTING WRONG

This article by Jacques Raubenheimer, a senior research fellow, Biostatistics, University of Sydney, appeared in The Conversation September 14th 2020.

If we don’t analyse statistics for a living, it’s easy to be taken in by misinformation about COVID-19 statistics on social media, especially if we don’t have the right context.

For instance, we may cherry pick statistics supporting our viewpoint and ignore statistics showing we are wrong. We also still need to correctly interpret these statistics.

It’s easy for us to share this misinformation. Many of these statistics are also interrelated, so misunderstandings can quickly multiply.

Here’s how we can avoid five common errors, and impress friends and family by getting the statistics right.

It’s the infection rate that’s scary, not the death rate

Social media posts comparing COVID-19 to other causes of death, such as the flu, imply COVID-19 isn’t really that deadly.

But these posts miss COVID-19’s infectiousness. For that, we need to look at the infection fatality rate (IFR) — the number of COVID-19 deaths divided by all those infected (a number we can only estimate at this stage; see also point 3 [in the original article]).

While the jury is still out, COVID-19 has a higher IFR than the flu. Posts implying a low IFR for COVID-19 most certainly underestimate it. They also miss two other points.

First, if we compare the typical flu IFR of 0.1 per cent with the most optimistic COVID-19 estimate of 0.25 per cent, then COVID-19 remains more than twice as deadly as the flu.

Second, and more importantly, we need to look at the basic reproduction number (R₀) for each virus. This is the number of extra people one infected person is estimated to infect.

Flu’s R₀ is about 1.3. Although COVID-19 estimates vary, its R₀ sits around a median of 2.8. Because of the way infections grow exponentially (see below), the jump from 1.3 to 2.8 means COVID-19 is vastly more infectious than flu.

When you combine all these statistics, you can see the motivation behind our public health measures to “limit the spread”. It’s not only that COVID-19 is so deadly, it’s deadly and highly infectious.

I’ve copied the introduction and the first of the six points made in the article for this short take. Please click through here to read all about the misconceptions we may have about:

Exponential growth and misleading graphs

Not all infections are cases

We can’t compare deaths with cases from the same date

Yes, the data are messy, incomplete and may change

 

‘FREEDOM DAY’ PROTESTERS SPREAD MISLEADING IMAGES

Anti-lockdown advocates planning to protest Australia-wide tomorrow at an event they have dubbed “Freedom Day” have used old images to support their claims that a similar protest in Berlin last weekend attracted 5 million people and saw police join in solidarity, researchers at First Draft reported.

In one example, an administrator for the Facebook group Millions Rise for Australia, which had nearly 120,000 members before it was removed from the platform this week, used images from 2016 and 2018 alongside a caption telling law enforcement groups in Australia to “choose their side”.

While some of those commenting on the post appeared to believe the photos were of the recent Berlin protest, First Draft found that one of the images showed police at a far-right rally in the city of Chemnitz in 2018, while the other was taken in 2016 at a protest against transatlantic trade deals.

In another example, Sydney protest organiser Michael Simms shared an image of what AFP Fact Check identified as a 1997 music festival in Berlin alongside a caption suggesting 5 million protesters from “all over Europe” had gathered in the German capital for a “Unite the Freedom Rally”.

According to First Draft, reports put the crowd size in Berlin last weekend at between 18,000 and 38,000, while “Unite the Freedom” was the name of a protest held in London.

Meanwhile, a Facebook post from anti-vaccination group Australian Vaccination-risks Network,  also suggests Berlin’s protest turnout was in the millions, this time using a crowd photo that accompanied a 2018 article about Brexit.

How many people will turn out for Australia’s “Freedom Day” protests remains to be seen, but in Melbourne, where strict lockdown restrictions mean protesters could be fined $1,652 for attending, police have vowed to “take action against anyone who shows up on the day”.

“The stage 4 restrictions make it very clear that people cannot leave their home in order to protest,” Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Luke Cornelius said at a media conference last week. “Organising and participating in this proposed protest would be a serious and blatant breach of the Chief Health Officer’s directions and it jeopardises the health of the entire community.”

Since then, Victoria Police have confirmed that multiple people involved in orchestrating the protest, including popular Facebook figure Fanos Panayides, have been arrested and charged with incitement.

FROM WASHINGTON, D.C.

A war of words has erupted between election hopefuls in the US, with President Donald Trump accusing Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden and running mate Kamala Harris of “undermining science and risking countless lives with reckless anti-vaccine rhetoric”.

But FactCheck.org found the claims that the two Democrats were against a vaccine to be false. Rather, both Mr Biden and Ms Harris have emphasised they are supportive of a safe and effective vaccine, but would not trust Mr Trump to ensure such standards.

“I will say that I would not trust Donald Trump,” Ms Harris said when asked if she’d receive a vaccine that was approved and distributed before the November 3 election. “It would have to be a credible source of information that talks about the efficacy and the reliability of whatever he’s talking about. I will not take his word for it.”

The fact-checkers also found that Mr Trump had exaggerated the progress of vaccine trials during a recent news conference.

While Mr Trump assured reporters that vaccine trials were progressing “very, very well”, and that one trial had met an enrolment target of 30,000 participants, FactCheck.org found that no vaccine company had yet reached that goal.

They added that due to the “double-blind” nature of the trials, in which the scientists and participants are kept in the dark through the process, “neither the president nor anyone within the companies or the [Food and Drug Administration] knows how well the vaccine is performing in the phase 3 trials so far”.

 

PREVIOUSLY FROM FROM WASHINGTON, D.C.

With President Donald Trump ramping up his “law and order” while campaigning ahead of November’s elections, US-based fact-checkers PolitiFact turned their attention to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, who claimed that COVID-19 posed a bigger threat to police than escalating street violence.

“More cops have died from COVID this year than have been killed on patrol,” he suggested in a speech delivered in Pittsburgh.

PolitiFact found the claim to be “mostly correct”, citing evidence from two sources that showed COVID-19 as the leading cause of work-related deaths for police in the US.

“Tallies of deaths by two national groups show that COVID-19 has killed more law enforcement officers than gunfire and other hazards of the job in 2020,” they concluded.

PolitiFact said it was unclear whether Mr Biden’s claim referenced other law enforcement officers such as corrections and detention officers who work in high-risk COVID-19 environments. But even with these groups excluded, the available data supported the claim.

EVEN EARLIER FROM WASHINGTON, D.C.

A misleading claim that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was forced to “admit that only 6 per cent” of reported COVID-19 deaths in the US were caused by the disease was removed by Twitter three weeks ago after being retweeted by President Donald Trump.

“This week the CDC quietly updated the Covid number to admit that only 6% of all the 153,504 deaths recorded actually died from Covid,” read the tweet, which was posted by a follower of the sprawling QAnon conspiracy theory.

“That’s 9,210 deaths,” the tweet said.

“The other 94% had 2-3 other serious illnesses & the overwhelming majority were of very advanced age.”

Fact-checkers at PolitiFact reported that the claim appeared to have originated on Facebook, with some posts referencing a data table published by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). That table contained figures, pulled from death certificates, relating to deaths from COVID-19 in combination with other conditions.

According to that data, COVID-19 was the singular cause of death listed on only 6 per cent death certificates.

But as NCHS chief of mortality statistics, Bob Anderson explained to AFP Fact Check, all deaths in the data table had COVID-19 listed as the underlying cause.

According to the fact-checkers: “Anderson clarified that while people can die of pneumonia they developed because of Covid-19, and both illnesses would be noted on their death certificate, their deaths are only counted once, as Covid-19.

“Often, comorbidities – when a disease or condition exists along with another disease or condition – are actually complications of Covid-19, Anderson explained.”

According to AFP, Mr Anderson also noted that listing only COVID-19 was a simplistic way of filling out death certificates, and was “not really appropriate” because “you rarely die of Covid-19 without it causing some type of complication”.

 

*The facts in this article are derived from the Australian RMIT ABC Fact-check newsletters which in turn draw on their own resources and those of their colleagues within the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), of which RMIT ABC Fact-check is a member.

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