Russian media have deployed a “significant disinformation campaign” against the West to worsen the impact of the coronavirus, generate panic and sow distrust, according to a European Union document seen by Reuters.
The Kremlin denied the allegations on Wednesday, saying they were unfounded and lacked common sense.
The EU document said the Russian campaign, pushing fake news online in English, Spanish, Italian, German and French, uses contradictory, confusing and malicious reports to make it harder for the EU to communicate its response to the pandemic.
“A significant disinformation campaign by Russian state media and pro-Kremlin outlets regarding COVID-19 is ongoing,” said the nine-page internal document, dated March 16, using the name of the disease that can be caused by the coronavirus.
“The overarching aim of Kremlin disinformation is to aggravate the public health crisis in Western countries…in
line with the Kremlin’s broader strategy of attempting to subvert European societies,” the document produced by the EU’s foreign policy arm, the European External Action Service, said.
A specialist EU database has recorded almost 80 cases of disinformation about coronavirus since Jan. 22, it said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov pointed to what he said was the lack in the EU document of a specific example or link to a specific media outlet.
“We’re talking again about some unfounded allegations which in the current situation are probably the result of an anti-Russian obsession,” said Peskov.
The EU document cited examples from Lithuania to Ukraine. It said that on social media, Russian state-funded, Spanish-language RT Spanish was the 12th most popular news source on coronavirus between January and mid-March, based on the amount of news shared on social media.
The EEAS declined to comment directly on the report.
The European Commission said it was in contact with Google, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft. An EU spokesman accused Moscow of “playing with people’s lives” and appealed to EU citizens to “be very careful” and only use news sources they trust.
The EU and NATO have accused Russia of covert action, including disinformation, to try to destabilise the West by exploiting divisions in society.
Russia denies any such tactics, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused foreign foes of targeting Russia by spreading fake news about coronavirus to whip up panic.
Russian media in Europe have not been successful in reaching the broader public, but provide a platform for anti-EU populists and polarise debate, analysis by EU and non-governmental groups has shown.
The EEAS report cited riots at the end of February in Ukraine, a former Soviet republic now seeking to join the EU and NATO, as an example of the consequences of such disinformation.
It said a fake letter purporting to be from the Ukrainian health ministry falsely stated here were five coronavirus cases in the country. Ukrainian authorities say the letter was created outside Ukraine, the EU report said.
“Pro-Kremlin disinformation messages advance a narrative that coronavirus is a human creation, weaponised by the West,” said the report, first cited by the Financial Times.
It quoted fake news created by Russia in Italy, the second-most heavily affected country in the world, that health systems would be unable to cope and doctors would choose who lived or died because of a lack of beds.
The EEAS has also shared information with Slovakia over the spread of fake news accusing the country’s prime minister, Peter Pellegrini, of being infected with the virus and saying he may have passed on the infection to others at recent summits.
EU leaders have been conferring by videoconferences since early March.
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Today in 1965, the members of the Rolling Stones were fined £5 for urinating in a public place, specifically a gas station after a concert in Romford, England.
Today in 1967, Britain’s New Musical Express magazine announced that Steve Winwood, formerly of the Spencer Davis Group, was forming a group with the rock and roll stew of Jim Capaldi, Chris Wood and Dave Mason, to be called Traffic …
… which made rock fans glad.
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Joe Biden has proven that he’s not above politicizing the coronavirus on multiple occasions. On Sunday, he doubled down on his politicization of the outbreak in an op-ed credited to him that was published on CNN, which claims that the country would be better equipped to handle outbreaks under a Biden presidency.
“No President can promise to prevent future outbreaks. But I can promise you that when I’m President, we will prepare better, respond better, and recover better,” the op-ed reads.
Here’s why that’s a bunch of malarkey.
Biden claimed that “Our government’s ability to respond effectively has been undermined by the hollowing-out of our agencies and the disparagement of science.” This is a regurgitation of an allegation he made last month when he said the Obama administration increased the budgets of the CDC and NIH, but that Trump cut the funding for these agencies. This was fact-checked by the Associated Press last month and was determined to be not true, yet Biden doubled down on the lie anyway. Neither agency saw their budgets cut.
Biden then mentioned that last week he “released [his] plan to combat and overcome the coronavirus,” which basically plagiarized everything the Trump administration had done already. I guess he still wants credit for stealing Trump’s plan.
But regardless of what Biden says he’d do differently, let’s look at his record to see what that tells us. The best way we can tell how an outbreak would be handled by a Biden administration is to look at how things were handled when Biden was vice president.
In short, not very well.
Remember the H1N1 pandemic? According to the CDC, from April 12, 2009, to April 10, 2010, there were an estimated 60.8 million cases, 274,304 hospitalizations, and 12,469 deaths in the United States due to H1N1. Clearly, the United States wasn’t prepared for it. We didn’t see any travel bans to slow the spread of it.
As PJM’s Victoria Taft noted about the H1N1 outbreak, “American health officials declared a public health emergency on April 26, 2009,” yet sought to downplay the announcement, calling it “standard operating procedure.” Barack Obama didn’t declare a national emergency until October, after millions of people in the United States were already infected, at least 20,000 were hospitalized, and over a thousand had died. Had a national emergency been declared right away, it would have freed up resources to address the pandemic earlier. Perhaps if the Obama administration had treated the outbreak more seriously, fare fewer than 12,469 people would have died during the outbreak.
On a similar note, the CDC, under Obama and Biden, was slow to generate a vaccine for H1N1. Yet, Biden has the nerve to claim the CDC was better prepared on his watch than it is currently under Trump? What a joke.
I think it’s clear that the Obama-Biden administration failed to meet the challenges of the H1N1 outbreak. The Obama-Biden administration proved itself to be less than adequate during the significantly smaller-scale West Africa Ebola outbreak of 2014-2016. The Ebola outbreak was never declared a global pandemic, but the Obama-Biden administration still had to concede that there were “shortcomings” in the federal government’s response. Even CNN panned the Obama-Biden administration’s response to the scare. CDC models were way off.
The lessons learned by the Obama-Biden administration in response to the global H1N1 pandemic and the Ebola outbreak should have resulted in improvements to our country’s ability to handle outbreaks. But that never happened. “The system is not really geared to what we need right now,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “That is a failing. Let’s admit it.” Fauci was responding to a question about our nation’s coronavirus testing capacity.
The Obama-Biden administration should have taken what it learned from the H1N1 pandemic and modernized the system to be able to handle such outbreaks. As a result of that inaction, the Trump administration is now having to address these issues. But, we should trust Biden when he says he’d handle the coronavirus outbreak better than Trump, who was busy addressing the outbreak while the Democratic Party was distracted by their efforts to impeach him. In fact, Trump’s decisive actions early on saved lives, according to experts.
Ultimately there would be little difference between a Trump administration pandemic and a Biden administration pandemic, except that Democrats lock up people faster.
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Business Insider composed this list from various health sources:
And the U.S. Army compiled a list of things to do if you are self-quarantining.
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The number one British single today in 1959:
Today in 1964, the Beatles set a record for advance sales, even though with 2.1 million sales the group would argue …
The number one single today in 1967:
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Since today is the Ides (Ide?) of March, let’s begin with the Ides of March …
… an outstanding example of brass rock.
Today in 1955, Elvis Presley signed a management contract with Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk, an illegal immigrant from the Netherlands who named himself Colonel Tom Parker.
The number two single that day:
The number one British album today in 1969 was Cream’s “Goodbye,” which was, duh, their last album:
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The texting shorthand term “smh” (“shakes my head”) didn’t exist in 1955 because texting didn’t exist in 1955.
But surely “smh” was invented for things like this: Today in 1955, CBS talent scout Arthur Godfrey made a signing decision between Elvis Presley and Pat Boone.
Godfrey chose Boone.
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I mentioned Thursday that I was getting to announce my 16th state tournament in Green Bay Thursday morning.
The radio announcer and visitor in 2015, when the radio guy got to cover two state champion teams. And I did. But it was, as CBS-TV’s Jim Nantz intones in Masters golf tournament promotions and as I said in my hastily created open, a state tournament unlike any other.
The girls basketball team was already in Green Bay. The high school fan bus, band coach and radio personnel left Thursday morning. About 20 miles on the way to Green Bay, we got a phone call from our guitar-playing son that the bus was going back to Platteville. Less than 12 hours after the WIAA said state would take place according to plan, the WIAA decided the games would take place but without spectators, except for 88 per school.
Suffice to say the ambiance was not what it usually was. At the beginning of the second game, a player was injured. The Resch Center was so quiet that up at the top, you could hear the TV announcers down on the floor.
All this took place while other breaking news was taking place back in Platteville that the newspaper editor (with the assistance of the passenger) got covered as BREAKING NEWS!
Readers know that one of the biggest events of my young life was playing in the band at the 1982 state tournament. I know how incensed I would have been had we been told that we couldn’t play at state. And that’s exactly what happened to our guitar-playing son, who got a shoutout by a team member at Wednesday’s pep rally at the high school. The WIAA’s decision, justified or not, basically ruined the state experience for everyone who wasn’t a player.
We left officially believing Platteville would be playing in the state Division 3 championship Saturday afternoon. Last night, the boys sectional semifinals were played, with the winners also to play Saturday to go to state.
Or not. Between Wednesday night and late Thursday night, the National Basketball Association and National Hockey League suspended their seasons, the National Collegiate Athletic Association canceled its basketball tournaments, and Major League Baseball suspended spring training and the start of its season.
And the WIAA announced late Thursday night that state and the rest of the boys postseason was canceled.
In a sense it’s the NBA’s fault, because it pulled the plug first, and, as a radio colleague said, “Monkey see, monkey do,” and everyone followed suit, justified or not.
It is strange to me that the NCAA flat out canceled its tournament instead of postponed it. It is similarly strange to me that the WIAA canceled its tournaments instead of postponing them. The players and coaches absolutely would have jumped at the chance to finish the tournaments in April, or May, or this summer.
I feel also for the people for whom my hobby is their line of work. The Facebook sports announcers group was full of people who are paid per game to announce, for instance, high school and college basketball and baseball. No games, no work.
Gary Wipperman had a similar experience Thursday. His conclusion is that life isn’t fair. And it’s not. And the kids who didn’t get to go to state at all, and the kids who didn’t get to finish the state experience they had earned, learned that the hard way.
This was used once. It was supposed to be used Saturday too.
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I think the garbage that people like Limbaugh and Hannity have been pushing about COVID-19 are just that. I think Trump was very slow on the uptake. But I can’t help thinking that we seem unable to respond in a measured way to anything. Overreaction is seen as a sign of sincerity and concern. Yes, you can make an argument that closing down the world is the “safest” thing to do. But that doesn’t mean it’s necessary. You can be concerned about the danger for exponential spread of the virus without concluding that all public contact must halt. We run the risk of causing far more damage than the virus ever could because we can’t balance cross-cutting concerns. It must be all or nothing.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 