CoronaCheck is RMIT ABC Fact Check’s weekly email newsletter dedicated to fighting the misinformation infodemic surrounding the coronavirus outbreak.
You can read the latest edition below, and subscribe to have the next newsletter delivered straight to your inbox.
CoronaCheck #50
Shocking footage of a young man being turfed unconscious from a Melbourne pub has spread online, with some sources suggesting the incident came after the man refused to comply with a mandatory mask mandate. In this week’s newsletter, we explain that the incident had nothing to do with COVID-19.
We’ve also taken a look at a Danish study supposedly showing masks to be “useless”, and check in with Argentina, which has one of the world’s highest counts of coronavirus cases.
Was a Melbourne man choked unconscious by security guards for failing to wear a mask?
Dramatic footage showing a teenager being choked, dropped on the floor and carried unconscious from a Melbourne pub by security guards has been shared by fake news websites claiming the incident took place after the man refused to wear a mask.
“Medical police state HORRORS in Australia: Young man choked out, slammed to the ground, heaved out of a restaurant for not wearing a mask,” a headline from the popular conspiracy theory website Natural News declares.
According to an accompanying article, the video “shows the shocking brutality of the newly emboldened medical police state enforcers who now believe they have the right to assault, injure, kidnap or even kill people who refuse to comply with senseless mask mandates or dangerous vaccine mandates”.
But that’s not quite right.
While the footage does indeed show a man being callously ejected from a hotel in Melbourne’s outer east last week, news stories reporting the incident made no mention of any refusal by him to wear a mask.
Rather, the man was reported to have been thrown out of the Croydon pub for “bad behaviour” before he climbed a fence to regain entry and poured himself a beer from behind the bar.
It was at this point, according to witnesses interviewed by Channel Seven, that the man was grabbed by a security guard and placed in a chokehold.
So, who is behind the spread of the false claim linking the incident to mask mandates?
According to the Times, editors of the journal which published the study also said that “masks likely need to be worn by most if not all people to reduce community infection rates” and that the results of the study should provide motivation for widespread mask wearing.
Experts interviewed by the New York Times, meanwhile, noted the limitations of the study, including that participants’ mask wearing behaviour was not monitored other than through self-reporting, and that the study was conducted when “both mask wearing and infection were rare in Denmark”.
Fact checkers at AAP raised similar concerns, concluding that while the “study did not find a statistically significant change in rates of COVID-19 infection among people wearing masks, it carries several limitations — including a small sample size and potential reporting flaws”.
“It also did not examine whether masks reduced the spread of the coronavirus from infected individuals, which experts say is the primary reason for mask-wearing recommendations.”
From Argentina
Having recorded the 9th largest number of COVID-19 cases in the world — more than 1.4 million — and nearly 40,000 deaths, Argentina has also been inundated with coronavirus misinformation, which South American fact-checking outfit Chequeado has confronted head on.
One claim found to be false by the fact checkers had suggested that a video showed new cremation chambers on their way from Spain to Argentina in preparation for future COVID-19 deaths.
In reality, the footage was of a port in Romania, not Spain, and showed machinery used to dehydrate plants to be fed to livestock.
A claim that a new law in the country would make vaccinations against COVID-19 mandatory was also found to be false, as was a suggestion that the law would shield the pharmaceutical companies producing the jabs from legal challenges.
“The COVID-19 vaccine bill was not enacted, but has received support from a portion of the Chamber of Deputies so far and [is] awaiting action by the Senate,” the fact checkers said.
“The text does not refer to the mandatory application of a future vaccine; nor does it establish ‘legal immunity for laboratories due to side effects’.”
Meanwhile, in a familiar genre of fact check, Chequeado investigated a viral photo purporting to show Argentinian President Alberto Fernández attending a public event without a face mask and with no regard for social distancing.
However, according to the fact checkers, the event took place in October 2019.
Finally, Chequeado deemed a claim by Mr Fernandez linking increases in coronavirus cases to protest marches to be lacking evidence.
“According to official data, there is no evidence available to establish a correlation between the increase in infections and the concentration of people outdoors.”
Read more about coronavirus:
In other news: How do the efforts of the Coalition and Labor stack up when it comes to cutting emissions?
With the east coast sweltering amid record November temperatures and the summer bushfire season fast approaching, Australia’s record on climate action is again in the spotlight.
During an interview on the ABC’s 7.30 program on November 11, 2020, Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese criticised the Federal Government’s record on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Asked about Labor’s policies, Mr Albanese said: “[W]e had a 15 per cent reduction when we were in government. Up to … the end of last year, there had only been a 1 per cent reduction under this Government since it came to office in 2013.”
Fact check: Emissions reductions
Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese says emissions fell by 15 per cent when Labor was last in government, and have fallen only 1 per cent under the Coalition.
Read more
RMIT ABC Fact Check this week found that claim to be close to the mark.
Annual greenhouse gas emissions fell 14.4 per cent under the last Labor government. By the end of 2019, under the Coalition, they had fallen 1.4 per cent.
The quarterly figures reveal a similar picture, with Labor recording a drop in emissions of 13.4 per cent, compared with the Coalition’s 2.4 per cent.
While those changes reflect the numbers available at the time of the claim, emissions have since fallen further, in part due to the effects of COVID-19 on transport.
Edited by Ellen McCutchan
Got a fact that needs checking? Tweet us @ABCFactCheck or send us an email at factcheck@rmit.edu.au