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| Photo credit: Map by Peter Christener, via Creative Commons License available here. |
The European Union Center at the University of Illinois strives to be a resource regarding European and European Union issues. As such, we have organized a group of U of I student volunteers with expertise and/or ties to various European regions or nations to keep track of statistics and developments. Each week we will post their findings to the EUC
blog.
Contributing students: Maria Arruti Iparraguirre, Pamela Binda, Laura Kim, Margarita Kuzmanova, Evelyn Lamb, Sean Norris, Quinn O'Dowd, Shawna Oliver, Helena Ortlieb, and Charlotte Prieu
May 7, 2020
EUROPE (Overview)
Reported by Lucas Henry, Coordinator of Academic Programs, European Union Center. Lucas is also a PhD candidate in musicology, with a research focus on European popular music, music festivals, and European Union cultural policy.
European Union, European Economic Area, and United Kingdom
Total reported cases: 1,218,311(Last week: 1,128,118)
COVID-19 related deaths: 143,911 (Last week: 131,419)
The EU/EEA/UK has 31.9% (last week: 32.5%) of the global total of reported cases and 53.4% (last week: 53.2%) of global total of COVID-19 related deaths.
Europe (EU, EEA, UK, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Turkey, Russian Federation, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Andorra, Monaco, Vatican City)
Total reported cases: 1,621,562 (last week: 1,433,182)
COVID-19 related deaths: 151,978 (last week: 138,132)
Europe as a continent has 42.6% (last week: 41.3%) of the global total of reported cases and 56.4% (last week: 55.9%) of global total of COVID-19 related deaths.
SOURCE:
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control: https://qap.ecdc.europa.eu/public/extensions/COVID-19/COVID-19.html
Last week the European Union’s High Representative of the European External Action Service (the EU’s institution for foreign policy), Josep Borrell, had to deal with fallout surrounding a report on China and its handling of the coronavirus crisis. In an internal memorandum, EEAS officials and civil servants had been very critical about Chinese misinformation surrounding the crisis, yet in the official statement many of these criticisms had been walked back. Things came to a boil when Politico Europe released a version of the original memorandum it had obtained, showing just how much the EEAS had changed its tune.
This comes at a time when much of the world is dealing with the spread of misinformation (or “fake news”, to use a term that is known all too well now). In Europe, in particular, Facebook has been blamed for not policing its content in such an important time. Much of the criticism Facebook has received is due to the fact that it will not remove content that has been proven to be untrue, but instead will tell users that what it has seen or shared may not be legitimate.
In addition to the regular reporting this week, the students will discuss recent news concerning coronavirus misinformation in various countries around Europe.
In addition to the regular reporting this week, the students will discuss recent news concerning coronavirus misinformation in various countries around Europe.
SOURCES:
AUSTRIA
Report by Helena Ortlieb. Helena is a junior at DePaul, double majoring in History and German Studies. She studied abroad at Vienna during the Spring 2020 semester and participated in the Illinois in Vienna Program.
Total reported cases: 15,671 (Last week: 15,364)
COVID-19 related deaths: 609 (Last week: 580).
Confirmed recoveries: 13,698 (Last week: 12,907).
SOURCES:
The rate of new COVID-19 cases in Austria continues to decrease. This is an encouraging sign for the projected reopening dates. The next proposed date is May 15 with the reopening of restaurants and other businesses. The Austrian government stresses the importance of two-week intervals between reopening steps in order to ensure the safety and health of its citizens. On May 6, there were fewer than 100 people in the intensive care units throughout Austria, and only 321 people being cared for in hospitals.
Austria is very strict about preventing the spread of misinformation and fake news concerning the COVID-19 pandemic. On February 28, the Federal Ministry of Social Affairs, Health, Care, and Consumer Protection launched a website to disseminate accurate information, the current situation in Austria, health measures, and prevention. Their goal is to ensure that all citizens remain vigilant without succumbing to fear based on incorrect information. Europol, The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, has also created a site informing EU citizens how to avoid spreading and receiving misinformation.
SOURCES:
BULGARIA
Report by Margarita Kuzmanova. Margarita is a freshman majoring in Aerospace Engineering.
Total reported cases: 1872 (last week: 1506)
COVID-19 related deaths: 86 (last week: 66)
Confirmed recoveries: 401 (last week: 266)
According to a special team of EU against disinformation, the source of some of the myths are some different political parties, including China and Russia. In this case, the idea is to weaken the representation of the EU and to provoke political changes. However, in the majority of the cases, it is the people who share the fake news through Facebook, not having the intent to misinform. Some of the myths are:
- The source of the virus is a bat-soup
- The EU nations are fighting among each other for the limited medical equipment
- The pandemic situation was created to profit from vaccines
- Masks may make people more sick
SOURCES:
CZECH REPUBLIC
Report by Quinn O’Dowd. Quinn is a second-year PhD student in the Department of Sociology, studying tourism and consumption.
Total reported cases: 8002 (last week: 7682)
COVID-19 related deaths: 269 (last week: 236)
Confirmed recoveries: 4369 (last week: 3314)
SOURCE:
Minister of Health Adam Vojtěch announced that from the 25th of May events with up to 500 participants will be allowed. Vojtěch also announced that it is possible that wearing facemasks outside will no longer be required at some point in May. The Prague 1 ban on Airbnb rentals due to COVID-19 will remain in place to protect the health of the neighborhood’s long-term residents. Preschools in Prague 14 and Prague 4 will reopen on the 25th of May. The last shipment of 8 million respirators and 60 million facemasks will leave from China on May 21st and is expected to reach the Czech Republic two weeks later
SOURCE:
FRANCE
Report by Charlotte Prieu. Charlotte is a PhD candidate in French linguistics in the Department of French and Italian.
Total reported cases: 137,150 (last week: 129,581)
3147 currently in intensive care units (last week: 4019)
COVID-19 related deaths: 25,809 (last week: 24,376)
Confirmed recoveries: 53,972 (last week: 49,476)
SOURCE:
Prime Minister Édouard Philippe and his government confirmed today that the lockdown will indeed start its end on Monday, May 11th. The government will start a massive testing campaign as people are able to circulate more. In some regions, parks and 6-12 grades will not be able to reopen for a few weeks. The policies in place for protecting staff and students in schools are very strict but the Minister of Education is confident that they will be respected despite some of the children's young age. In regions where the virus is still highly circulating, such as the Paris area, people will have to have a signed document to justify their use of public transportation.
SOURCE:
GERMANY
Report by Evelyn Lamb, Sean Norris, and Shawna Oliver.
Evelyn is a sophomore majoring in economics and Germanic studies, with a minor in art history. She plans to pursue graduate studies in German.
Sean is a junior majoring in global studies and German.
Shawna is a senior majoring in history. She is also a member of the Air Force ROTC.
*Germany is an excellent case to highlight discrepancies in statistics. Each student looked to different reporting agencies for information, and each returned different results. See below.
Worldometer
Total reported cases: 168,665 (last week: 161,985)
COVID-19 related deaths: 7322 (last week: 6072)
Confirmed recoveries: 139,900 (last week: 123,500)
SOURCE:
World Health Organization (WHO)
Total reported cases: 166,091 (last week: 159,119)
COVID-19 related deaths: 7119 (last week: 6288)
SOURCE:
Robert Koch Institut (RKI)
Total reported cases: 164,807 (last week: 157,641)
COVID-19 related deaths: 6996 (last week: 6115)
Confirmed recoveries: c.137,400 (last week: c. 120,400)
SOURCE:
In early April, the German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas warned NATO members against the possible spread of misinformation/propaganda/fake news throughout the Western world. While he did not name specific countries, he spoke after there had been a rise in wrong information that was shared by the Russian state media. In March there had been Russian sources spread across Eastern Europe that soon reached all of Europe.
The sources targeted “the West to worsen the impact of the coronavirus, generate panic, and sow distrust”. (Reuters) The German people have mitigated this by putting into law guidelines that will “combat the spread of fake news and hate speech in the West” as well as anything that is seen as inciting terrorism and child pornography (Washington Post). The law would only effect those within the borders of Germany, but they are pressing for other nations within the EU to take the same measures.
SOURCES:
The biggest news in Germany is they are getting their national sport back, on the stipulation there are no fans in the stadium. According to ESPN who reported on this, the Bundesliga will resume play May 16th. In other news, Germany has seen what they are describing as “Pandemic Populism”. According to Deutsche Welle the country has seen a trend of fake news regarding the virus and there is a growing source of rumores around the politicians making decisions regarding the virus. The biggest fake news story is this according to DW, “Andreas Albrecht Harlass, spokesman for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) parliamentary party in the eastern state of Saxony, speculated that Merkel is not only gone — she will also never come back. The quarantine, he says, is just a pretext. Some of his followers claimed to know more details: the German chancellor is probably hiding in a bunker at her country estate in Paraguay, a property they claim she bought years ago”. This is clearly a lie, a German is working to combat it in the weeks to come.
SOURCES:
Since the onset of COVID-19, Germany’s premiere health institution, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) has been under fire. Several German scholars and statisticians, as well as Mayor Boris Palmer of Tübingen, have been using media outlets to express disagreement with the health statistics released by the RKI. During a media broadcast in mid-April, Palmer referred to a YouTube video of Professor Stefan Homburg that argued the infection curve reported by the RKI in March was inflated beyond the real amount of confirmed cases. The financial scientist argues that the COVID-19 infection rate had already fallen to 0.8 by March 20, while the RKI didn’t report the same decrease until mid-April. Although Homburg’s claims were discredited by several media outlets, scientists, and the German federal government, Palmer and numerous German citizens used it to push for the immediate relaxing of quarantine restrictions and, in doing so, propagated the spread of false information throughout Germany. Even weeks later, after the re-opening of the country has begun, social media platforms are buzzing with rumors that the RKI is releasing unreliable data.
SOURCES:
POLAND
Report by Pamela Binda. Pamela is a senior with a major in Political Science and a minor in Slavic Languages, Literature, and Culture.
Total reported cases: 15,047 (last week: 12,877)
COVID-19 related deaths: 755 (last week: 644)
SOURCES:
Poland’s presidential election has been severely impacted by COVID-19. Ultimately, the pandemic has forced Poland to push back its election four days before the event. The all-mail postal vote was noted to be an undermining of democracy and was shut down by the opposing party in the senate. The number of coronavirus cases has increased to 15,047 and the death toll has risen to 755. Over 425,944 COVID-19 tests have been distributed throughout the country. Poland has begun to enter its second phase of lifting restrictions. Shopping malls and hotels were opened on May 4th with strict guidelines. Nurseries and kindergartens were opened on May 6th but could only be used if the children’s guardians were unable to take care of them due to working an essential job.
SOURCES:
SPAIN
Report by Maria Arruti Iparraguirre. Maria is a PhD student in Spanish Literatures and Cultures.
Total reported cases: 221,447 (last week: 212,917)
COVID-19 related deaths: 128,511 (last week: 24,275)
Confirmed recoveries: 26,070 (last week: 108,947)
SOURCE:
Many examples of misinformation and fake news regarding the COVID-19 have occurred in Spain. In terms of its origin, it has been said that it was created in a lab in Wuhan, that it was purposefully created in order to sell vaccines, and that it was a complot organized by Bill Gates and the Pirbright Institute. In what it comes to the prevention of the disease, the use of vitamin C, drinking hot tea with lemon and bicarbonate, eating garlic, and drinking water every 15 minutes were the most popular methods. Finally, some fake cures became really popular too, like drinking wine, cocaine, and pneumonia vaccines.
SWEDEN
Reported by Lucas Henry
Total reported cases: 24,623 (last week: 22,317)
COVID-19 related deaths: 3040 (last week: 2679)
SOURCE:
As we have seen in the past few weeks, Sweden’s approach to combatting coronavirus has been widely considered to be too lax by standards set by other European nations. Swedes, on the other hand, have been quite supportive of their government and the chief coronavirus crisis strategist, Anders Tegnell. However, many feel that the response has played into the hands of the Sverigedemokraterna (SD, or Sweden Democrats in English), the far-right political party that has risen in stature during the past few election cycles. The fear is that it has emboldened SD supporters who have used sexist undertones in their attack on scientists who have questioned the nations’ response or racist remarks about the nation’s embrace of immigrants via increased health care during the crisis.
SOURCES:
SWITZERLAND
Reported by Laura Kim. Laura is a student at DePaul, studying Finance and German. She studied abroad in Vienna during the Spring 2020 semester and participated in the Illinois in Vienna Program, taking European Union courses at the Vienna University of Economics and Business.
Total reported cases: 30,126
COVID-19 related deaths: 1810
Confirmed recoveries: 25,900
SOURCE:
Although we’re learning more about COVID-19 every day, it’s clear that there is still a lot that we don’t know and misinformation about the virus makes it challenging to determine what is true and what is not.
This is especially true in Switzerland as social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp make it easy to quickly spread misinformation about the virus. One such example occurred in mid-March where many people in Switzerland claimed that they received WhatsApp messages from Geneva University Hospital (HUG) and University Hospital in Lausanne (CHUV). These messages stated that the Swiss hospital system was overwhelmed and that the hospitals did not have enough room to house all their incoming coronavirus patients so patients were being treated in the hallways of hospitals. However, the Swiss president reported that these were only rumors since the situation in Switzerland was stable and that the country had all the resources to overcome the virus without getting overwhelming the healthcare system.
Though this is only one example of misinformation in Switzerland, there is a constant stream of new misinformation, conspiracy theories, and cures regarding the virus appearing every single day. So as a result of this, Swiss aid groups and humanitarian organizations have teamed up in the hopes of reducing misinformation and better protecting their population.
SOURCE:
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