Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): Disinformation, Fake News & Scams

[James_H]

A running list of disinformation about the coronavirus

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/janelytvynenko/coronavirus-disinformation-spread

PS over here people are calling it WARS. That's killing two horsemen of the apocalypse with one stone.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

Apocalyptic scenes in downtown Wuhan.
What should be a busy thoroughfare is deserted - except for a dead body and men in hazard suits.



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ge-that-captures-the-wuhan-coronavirus-crisis

 

[Mythopoeika]

Apocalyptic scenes in downtown Wuhan.
What should be a busy thoroughfare is deserted - except for a dead body and men in hazard suits.

View attachment 22889

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ge-that-captures-the-wuhan-coronavirus-crisis

It makes for a newsworthy image, but the man could have simply died of a random heart attack or stroke, completely unconnected to the coronavirus.

 

[Ermintruder]

and men in hazard suits

These are not 'hazard suits': these are CSI/SOCO forensic suits, also used in industrial clean-room processes.

Perhaps they are being worn as ad hoc barrier protection against potential infection: but why aren't these people simply civil Police scenes examiners, attending a potentially-suspicious death on the street?

 

[Mythopoeika]

These are not 'hazard suits': these are CSI/SOCO forensic suits, also used in industrial clean-room processes.

Perhaps they are being worn as ad hoc barrier protection against potential infection: but why aren't these people simply civil Police scenes examiners, attending a potentially-suspicious death on the street?

Could be fake news.

 

[Ermintruder]

I noticed a reference online to some of the released photographs allegedly-depicting contemporary casualties elsewhere in China being dismissed by some as old & misattributed victims of heatstroke, since there were (apparently) summer trees in the pictures, and this is currently China's winter (it stated in the piece).

I've been unable to relocate that content (I bookmark everything that needs to be looked at twice, so that's odd). But...we all must accept (as I am heard to say, far too often): Photoshop &etc can fix or fabricate facts & fictions as easy as click-2-3-done.

ZOMBIE OUTBREAK

No, we've got to think about this realistically.

If there needed to be distractions during a presidential impeachment process, and major changes within European political structures, surely it'd make more sense to wait until after the Chinese/Lunar New Year, then regenerate a previous damp squib boogieman that's diverted public opinion so effectively in the past?

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

I noticed a reference online to some of the released photographs allegedly-depicting contemporary casualties elsewhere in China being dismissed by some as old & misattributed, since there were (apparently) summer trees in the pictures, and this is currently China's winter (it stated in the piece).

I've been unable to relocate that content (I bookmark everything that needs to be looked at twice, so that's odd). But...we all must accept (as I am heard to say, far too often): Photoshop &etc can fix or fabricate facts & fictions as easy as click-2-3-done.

Agreed. This photo appears to be genuine though as, "Journalists from Agence France-Presse saw the body on Thursday morning, not long before a vehicle arrived carrying emergency workers. ...A woman standing near the man said she believed he had died from the virus. It’s terrible, she said. These days many people have died.”

People reluctant to leave their homes. Living off stockpiled food. Shops almost empty. No public transport. Millions of people quarantined.
It's worrying enough here, half the world away but, in China, it must be truly nightmarish.

 

[Ogdred Weary]

It has certainly arrived at a convenient time but I don't think it's manufactured; there is no doubt some exaggeration as there always is with any remotely "sensational" news and a big, powerful, potentially threatening, distant and generally "other" culture is always a convenient scapegoat/whipping boy.

 

[Kondoru]

Could be a drunk?

(Thats harsh of me; My mother died of a heart attack in...well, it was the backlane but that couunts as a throughfare, doesnt it?)

<Yawns> Wake me up when it gets Interesting Times

 

[MorningAngel]

Some said they saw a pictures of troops on the M25 with Covid-19 on the side of their vehicles. Now I didn’t believe that because why would they waste time putting that on the sides?

Then I heard reports of tanks entering London which I can’t find anything about.

Lies or cover up? I think it’s just people spreading panic. It’s a bad enough time as it is.

 

[Ogdred Weary]

Tanks in London, if not now, soon.

Things with "Covid-19" on the side? I don't think so.

 

[Tin]

Tanks in London, if not now, soon.

Things with "Covid-19" on the side? I don't think so.

Seeing tanks in London sounds very dubious, I can imagine troops used to help out the emergency services and hospitals. But why bring tanks in? What good will they be? Sounds like rubbish to me.

 

[MorningAngel]

Seeing tanks in London sounds very dubious, I can imagine troops used to help out the emergency services and hospitals. But why bring tanks in? What good will they be? Sounds like rubbish to me.

Unless the expect riots. I don’t think so though.

 

[Mythopoeika]

Seeing tanks in London sounds very dubious, I can imagine troops used to help out the emergency services and hospitals. But why bring tanks in? What good will they be? Sounds like rubbish to me.

The tanks would be of no use other than to put across a message.
I think it's fake news (so far).

 

[Swifty]

Unless the expect riots. I don’t think so though.

Unless things improve rapidly, I think the lowest paid and least supported in UK society might and possibly will indeed attempt to riot over the 'zero hour contract? .. about to be evicted? .. piss off to a food bank then!' crew .. when we've also got Richard Branson worth over 4 billion quid reportedly trying to now ask for government financial support at the same time? .. and all the other billionaires and multi millionaires conspicuously silent at the moment .. I can see something kicking off from the genuinely most desperate and not from, like, Jeremy, Rainbow and Pippa via Extinction Rebellion .. the real under class V police, army, drones etc ..

 

[Vardoger]

Tanks in London, if not now, soon.

Things with "Covid-19" on the side? I don't think so.

Shooting virus with tanks. The virus got no chance.

 

[Roland Deschain]

Unless the expect riots. I don’t think so though.

Tanks are useless in urban environments you don’t want to smash up, it’s not what they are for.

 

[MorningAngel]

Unless things improve rapidly, I think the lowest paid and least supported in UK society might and possibly will indeed attempt to riot over the 'zero hour contract? .. about to be evicted? .. piss off to a food bank then!' crew .. when we've also got Richard Branson worth over 4 billion quid reportedly trying to now ask for government financial support at the same time? .. and all the other billionaires and multi millionaires conspicuously silent at the moment .. I can see something kicking off from the genuinely most desperate and not from, like, Jeremy, Rainbow and Pippa via Extinction Rebellion .. the real under class V police, army, drones etc ..

But rioting would bring large groups of people together which will just spread it more.

 

[MorningAngel]

Shooting virus with tanks. The virus got no chance.

Well they’ve been selling even mor guns in America, so some people reckon they are going to shoot it.

 

[Swifty]

But rioting would bring large groups of people together which will just spread it more.

Yep.

 

[Ogdred Weary]

Unless things improve rapidly, I think the lowest paid and least supported in UK society might and possibly will indeed attempt to riot over the 'zero hour contract? .. about to be evicted? .. piss off to a food bank then!' crew .. when we've also got Richard Branson worth over 4 billion quid reportedly trying to now ask for government financial support at the same time? .. and all the other billionaires and multi millionaires conspicuously silent at the moment .. I can see something kicking off from the genuinely most desperate and not from, like, Jeremy, Rainbow and Pippa via Extinction Rebellion .. the real under class V police, army, drones etc ..

THIS.

 

[Roland Deschain]

Unless things improve rapidly, I think the lowest paid and least supported in UK society might and possibly will indeed attempt to riot over the 'zero hour contract? .. about to be evicted? .. piss off to a food bank then!' crew .. when we've also got Richard Branson worth over 4 billion quid reportedly trying to now ask for government financial support at the same time? .. and all the other billionaires and multi millionaires conspicuously silent at the moment .. I can see something kicking off from the genuinely most desperate and not from, like, Jeremy, Rainbow and Pippa via Extinction Rebellion .. the real under class V police, army, drones etc ..

Yeah it’s tricky. I’m getting at least short term support from above for those employees I may yet have to send home so that those who are hand to mouth don’t suffer but it won’t be forever.
If the support Branson etc requests is wages then fine, but if it is airport charges or payments on airplane HP then feck off.

 

[MorningAngel]

Yeah it’s tricky. I’m getting at least short term support from above for those employees I may yet have to send home so that those who are hand to mouth don’t suffer but it won’t be forever.
If the support Branson etc requests is wages then fine, but if it is airport charges or payments on airplane HP then feck off.

‘Virgin Atlantic staff are understood to have been asked to take eight weeks’ unpaid leave in the next three months to help the airline cope with the impact Covid-19 has had on the aviation industry’

https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/18/bill...pay-staff-judged-coronavirus-crisis-12420231/

 

[JamesWhitehead]

A slightly-demure girl in a Catholic school shared with the class the information that she had been told the virus could be defeated by lots of sex! Others had taken on board the notion that it hates alcohol, so resolved to drink a lot of it.

Can't wait for the "What we did on our protracted holidays" essays! Supposing I am still around to mark them . . .

 

[Roland Deschain]

‘Virgin Atlantic staff are understood to have been asked to take eight weeks’ unpaid leave in the next three months to help the airline cope with the impact Covid-19 has had on the aviation industry’

https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/18/bill...pay-staff-judged-coronavirus-crisis-12420231/

Yep fuck Branson then. How is he going to staff and pilot these planes three months in, with school leavers? If Virgin and indeed the whole air passenger business is so poorly profitable then time to kill it all off.
The whole shebang only exists because aviation fuel isn’t taxed. Tax it like petrol and the real cost of foreign holidays will become apparent alongside a huge drop in air travel.

 

[kamalktk]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-panic-in-west-eu-document-says-idUSKBN21518F

Tldr, stop listening to Russia

 

[Yithian]

Some said they saw a pictures of troops on the M25 with Covid-19 on the side of their vehicles. Now I didn’t believe that because why would they waste time putting that on the sides?

Then I heard reports of tanks entering London which I can’t find anything about.

Lies or cover up? I think it’s just people spreading panic. It’s a bad enough time as it is.

The one I saw had the vehicles on the wrong side of the road for the UK.

 

[MorningAngel]

The one I saw had the vehicles on the wrong side of the road for the UK.

I did sound like a photoshop job to me.

I found this, but it is the mail...

 

[MorningAngel]

And also this.

 

[MorningAngel]

The one I saw had the vehicles on the wrong side of the road for the UK.