UN members stifling pandemic press freedoms and TikTok ban in India
Good morning, good night and good afternoon, depending on where you are in the world. Do you have lingering questions about COVID-19? Trying to fact-check a scientific claim? We have a team of scientists that offer analysis for your COVID-19 reporting and debunking. Send us a line at health@meedan.com or go to learnaboutcovid19.org/ask-a-question!
This week we have news about UN members stifling press freedoms, TikTok getting banned in India and an update from fact-checkers on Brazil's fake news bill.
Top COVID-19 questions
Journalist and medical doctor, Dr. Seema Yasmin shares weekly highlights from Meedan's COVID-19 Expert Database
What signals can we use to tell whether a country's cases are rising significantly because of an expansion in testing or if they are caused by something else?
From the COVID-19 Expert Database: It is important to evaluate the number of cases, availability of testing, and percent positive rate when evaluating if a true climb in cases is due to a growing hotspot or just an increase in testing availability. Often, lack of testing availability can cloud this issue, which is why evaluating this piece of information in comparison to the growth in case counts while considering percent positive, provides a more accurate picture.
Seema says: "Some politicians have said that record-breaking numbers of newly infected Americans are a result of increased testing. This is not entirely accurate. Expanded testing can uncover new infections, but for every one American that tests positive for COVID-19, 10 more Americans are likely infected but not tested and not counted as a case, according to CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield. To understand the magnitude of spread, it’s helpful to look at positive tests as a proportion of all tests conducted. For example, in Dallas County, Texas, one in 10 Covid-19 tests was coming back positive in mid-June. By late June, the proportion was more than 1 in 4. Hospitalization rates and deaths are also helpful indicators for understanding the dynamics of an epidemic. This question is particularly important to address when the false narrative that increased testing explains rising case counts can lead to a false sense of security and optimism about the pandemic."
What are the many benefits of testing?
From the COVID-19 Expert Database: In order to slow a pandemic, multiple pillars of intervention are required. Viral testing, which tells you if you are currently infected, is a key one, as testing helps to track the spread of the virus, treat more cases, and provide more accurate information about how many people are infected. Testing is critical to understanding how any communicable disease is spread, including the virus SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19. Timely testing could have led to quick identification of infected patients, identification of close contacts of the infected people, targeted quarantine measures, and early access to symptomatic relief. In the initial months of the pandemic, countries that rapidly scaled up testing capacity, such as South Korea, were able to better contain the spread of COVID-19 in comparison to countries that were slow to increase testing, such as the United States.
Seema says: "On an individual level, testing helps to identify people who are infected and can direct healthcare providers to the best course of treatment. Because pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic people can also spread SARS-CoV-2, testing can identify those at risk of transmitting the virus who feel healthy. But testing is also a valuable public health surveillance tool. It identifies regional disease clusters before they become huge outbreaks, enabling public health workers to understand where the disease is spreading and who is at risk. This allows resources to be directed towards containing new clusters. If offered widely, testing can also paint an accurate picture of the epidemic in a given region, helping track trends and amend public health plans. Understanding the many benefits of testing is important as cases surge in the U.S. and testing is still not as widespread as it should be."
How soon can we have a COVID-19 vaccine?
From the COVID-19 Expert Database: The timeline for vaccine availability is still unclear, since the development and testing processes normally take many years. There are currently more than 100 potential vaccines for COVID-19 under development around the world. Each potential vaccine must be thoroughly tested to determine whether it has any harmful side effects, whether it can prevent disease in other mammals, and whether it successfully produces antibodies, which are the biological tools or instructions our immune systems need to defend against the virus. (Read more).
Seema says: "The U.S. government initiative Operation Warp Speed aims to deliver 300 doses of a safe and effective Covid-19 vaccine by January 2021 making it the most ambitious vaccine project in history. The fastest a vaccine has ever been developed was for the mumps virus, a process that took four years. Optimism is bolstered by the news that globally more than one hundred scientific groups are testing approximately 200 vaccine candidates — at least 14 of them already in human trials. In the UK in early July, a chief scientist told politicians a vaccine from the University of Oxford could be ready by early 2021. But even if safe and effective vaccines are discovered, manufacturing millions or even billions of doses can take years, and the logistical and ethical considerations of mass vaccination campaigns need careful deliberation. Informing the public about vaccine development should offer this context: an unprecedented race to find a Covid-19 vaccine could mean one or even more vaccines are identified by early 2021, but there is no guarantee that an effective vaccine will be found, meaning public health countermeasures to lower the R0 remain critical."
Top stories
TikTok made stars out of these villagers in India. Then it was banned (Los Angeles Times)
India's TikTok’s users included 200 million users, the company's largest international market. Many villagers, lower-caste Indians and others from marginalized backgrounds used TikTok for fun and often income.
But this week India banned the platform and 58 other apps developed by Chinese companies, labeling them threats to national security, in apparent retaliation for the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers in a melee with Chinese troops on the countries’ disputed Himalayan border two weeks ago.
“The announcement dealt a blow to China, whose tech industry is a source of national pride and a key competitor in an emergent Cold War with the U.S. But it also illustrated how ubiquitous and influential Chinese apps and other digital products have become around the world, transforming lives even as rival governments worry about their potential for harm.”— Los Angeles Times
Brazilian fact-checkers warn their country’s ‘fake news’ bill will do more harm than good (Poynter)
Fact-checkers warned that the bill would harm freedom of press and create a surveillance network in the country. According to the proposed law, platforms like WhatsApp would keep a database of highly forwarded messages for up to three months, and the database would be accessible by court order. Proponents argue it’s key to both tracking the spread of disinformation and holding disinformers accountable.
"The bill also requires Brazilians to show photo identification to access their social media accounts, makes tech companies liable for false information spread on their platforms, and creates a politically appointed “Council of Best Practices” to define concepts like misinformation and disinformation. Tai Nalon, founder of Brazilian fact-checking organization Aos Fatos, said the bill doesn’t adequately define the government’s authority — making it vulnerable to abuse. " — Poynter
Nearly half of UN member countries have obstructed coronavirus coverage (Reporters Without Borders)
Press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders has been documenting press freedom violations linked to coverage of the coronavirus crisis. In all, 47% of UN member states have failed to respect the right to inform, according to their analysis. This percentage does not include Taiwanese journalists, who have been barred from the World Health Organization’s press conferences under pressure from China on the grounds that Taiwan is not a UN member.
"The worst violations have not been limited to countries with poor rankings in the World Press Freedom Index. Incidents have occurred in seven European countries (six of them EU members) where the press freedom situation is usually regarded as good or fairly good. This has been the case, for example, in Germany and the United Kingdom, respectively ranked 11th and 35th out of 180 countries. In the first, journalists have been physically attacked during protests against lockdown restrictions. In the second, RSF has been concerned about the government’s aggressive reaction to some articles criticizing its handling of the pandemic," — Reporters Without Borders
What’s new at Meedan
Highlights from our team
We are hosting an Instagram Live with Dr. Arghavan Salles and Dr. Seema Yasmin at 6:30 ET on July 9th. Dr. Salles was a doctor in New York City during its COVID-19 peak and is now treating patients in California. This is part of our series on the COVID-19 Expert Database, which you can find at learnaboutcovid19.org and ask our team of scientists to analyze newsworthy pandemic topics.