Citations for the Recode Handshake Debunking

Instead of covering tech used to fight the novel coronavirus, Recode covered handshakes. Unfortunately, they messed that up too.

Context

On February 7, a Recode journalist reached out with a request for comment that immediately raised my eyebrows.

• I had context, and called it out on Twitter in advance here
• Some back and forth ensued.
• Here was the subsequent article (archive link).
• And here was my response as a series of tweets.

Twitter didn’t have space to include citation links for each tweet in the response, so I’m doing that below.

Tweet 1

• Original tweet
• “This was going to be a story about handshakes”
• “How do you know that without talking to her?”
• “Oh it’s a psychic”

Tweet 2

• CNN: WHO declares coronavirus a public health emergency of national concern
• CNBC: Mayo Clinic doctor: Coronavirus is ‘basically at a pandemic now’ and should be treated as such
• The Hill: The CDC is preparing for coronavirus ‘to take a foothold in the US’
• CNBC: Coronavirus will likely become a pandemic, warns ex-FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb

Tweet 3

• Recode: “No handshakes, please”: The tech industry is terrified of the coronavirus
• Archive link

After this point, I won’t keep linking the Recode piece, even though it is cited in many of the tweets below.

Tweet 4

• STAT - CDC director: More person-to-person coronavirus infections in U.S. likely, but containment still possible
• Director-General of the WHO: “Containment remains our objective, but all countries must use the window of opportunity created by the containment strategy to prepare for the virus’s possible arrival.”
• Director-General of the WHO: The detection of a small number of cases may indicate more widespread transmission in other countries; in short, we may only be seeing the tip of the iceberg.

Tweet 5

• Reuters: Hunt on for ‘patient zero’ who spread coronavirus globally from Singapore
• BBC News: Coronavirus: UK conference attendees warned over case
• CNBC: Mobile World Congress canceled after coronavirus outbreak makes conference ‘impossible’

Tweet 6

• CDC: How Other Coronaviruses Spread
• CNBC: Op-ed: Gottlieb says screening and fist bumps over handshakes will help protect against coronavirus

Tweet 7

• Japan Times: Coronavirus study implicates fecal transmission
• South China Morning Post: China adds new symptoms to coronavirus diagnostic list. Health authorities also warn that discovery of virus in patients’ faeces suggest that it could be another source of transmission
• ABC News 9 Eugene Oregon / Kezi: How can the coronavirus spread through bathroom pipes? Experts are investigating in Hong Kong.

Tweet 8

• Sfist: Local Hospitals Prepare for Coronavirus Patients; Richmond Lab Begins Testing: “While there has yet to be a case of the Wuhan/novel coronavirus in San Francisco, health officials are preparing for the inevitability/possibility that a case will appear here — and Zuckerberg SF General is prepared with 50 isolation rooms that will keep patients from transmitting the virus to others.”

Tweet 9

• Johns Hopkins: Dashboard of Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by Johns Hopkins CSSE
• NPR: Beijing Braces For Coronavirus Cases As Lunar Holiday Ends

Tweet 10

• South China Morning Post: Wuhan mayor under pressure to resign over response to coronavirus outbreak…He is slammed for allowing Lunar New Year gathering of more than 40,000 people to go ahead on Sunday
• WSJ: Some Lunar New Year Events in New York Canceled Over Fear of Coronavirus. One organization’s leader says group heard ‘a lot of concerns about having a very big public gathering’
• NBC 6 South Florida: Miami’s Chinese New Year Festival Cancelled Amid Fears of Coronavirus

Tweet 11

• NPR: San Francisco Squalor: City Streets Strewn With Trash, Needles And Human Feces
• NBC Bay Area: Survey of Downtown San Francisco Reveals Trash on Every Block, 303 Piles of Feces and 100 Drug Needles

Tweet 12

• The Lancet: Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of 99 cases of 2019 novel coronavirus pneumonia in Wuhan, China: a descriptive study
• New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM): First Case of 2019 Novel Coronavirus in the United States
• Caijing: People outside the statistics: They died of “general pneumonia”? (1) Original story archive link, (2) Google Translate, (3) Twitter commentary.
• Wired: Coronavirus Is Bad. Comparing It to the Flu Is Worse

Tweet 13

• CBS News: Interview of Columbia Prof W. Ian Lipkin
• Johns Hopkins: Dashboard of Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by Johns Hopkins CSSE

Tweet 14

• NPR: 45 Million Chinese Now Under Quarantine As Officials Try To Halt Coronavirus Spread
• WSJ: How Many People Might One Person With Coronavirus Infect?
• CNBC: China confirms 15,152 new coronavirus cases, 254 additional deaths
• LA Times: How deadly is the new coronavirus? Scientists race to find the answer
• Reuters: WHO investigates Singapore conference linked to foreign virus spread

Tweet 15

• Original call out tweet

And for color:

Tweet 16

• Original tweet
• “This was going to be a story about handshakes”
• “How do you know that without talking to her?”
• “Oh it’s a psychic”

Tweet 17

Not sure we need any cites here :)

Tweet 18

That’s all, folks!

Coda

The whole thing can be summarized in a few tweets :)