From ‘impotency’ to ‘microchip’: Dangerous conspiracy theories surrounding Covid-19

The coronavirus illness (Covid-19) pandemic has claimed over 1.83 million lives worldwide up to now, in keeping with Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, overwhelming well being services across the globe. While the governments and well being authorities have been working to include the virus and decelerate its transmission, they’ve additionally been struggling to place a lid on wild and baseless conspiracy theories. Several social media platforms scrambled so as to add labels, warnings and hyperlinks to trusted information sources to bust the rumours. Here are a few of the baseless conspiracy theories round Covid-19:‘Impotency’Samajwadi Party chief Ashutosh Sinha mentioned that his social gathering doesn’t consider within the equipment of the federal government, suggesting that the vaccine could also be used for inhabitants management by making individuals impotent. Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) VG Somani on Sunday rubbished the newest conspiracy concept surrounding Covid-19 vaccine.“The vaccines are 100 per cent safe. Some side effects like mild fever, pain and allergy are common for every vaccine. It is absolute rubbish that people may become impotent,” Somani was quoted as saying by information company ANI.5G causes Covid-19During the preliminary days of the coronavirus outbreak, an incomprehensible concept about 5G – the next-generation wi-fi community know-how – inflicting the well being disaster made its strategy to social media platforms. The conspiracy theorists pointed to the set up of 5G towers in Wuhan, China, earlier than the virus outbreak. The Federal Communications Commission of the United States needed to launch an announcement to quell the hearsay. “A worldwide online conspiracy theory has attempted to link 5G cell phone technology as being one of the causes of the coronavirus. Many cell towers outside of the US have been set on fire as a result. 5G technology does NOT cause coronavirus,” the assertion learn.Also Read | ‘Disgraceful’: Health minister Vardhan slams Akhilesh Yadav, Tharoor over Covid-19 vaccine ‘doubts’‘Plandemic’A 26-minute video titled ‘Plandemic’ was uploaded on YouTube which claimed the pandemic was a deliberate well being disaster. In the video, a discredited medical researcher, Judy Mikovits, asserted that face masks “activates your own virus” and vaccines are “a money-making enterprise that causes medical harm”. The video additionally urged that highly effective elites have been complicit within the virus outbreak and stand to revenue from it.The video garnered hundreds of thousands of views inside hours earlier than it was taken taken down by YouTube and different social media platforms for making false claims. Since then, a number of medical professionals have additionally come ahead to garbage the declare and a number of fact-check movies have been uploaded on YouTube to minimise the injury from such baseless theories.The World Health Organisation (WHO) has repeatedly mentioned that carrying masks is a key measure to suppress virus transmission and save lives. According to the UN well being company, masks can be utilized for both safety of wholesome individuals or to stop onward transmission. It has suggested that masks must be used as a part of a complete method.Bill Gates and microchipA Yahoo News/YouGov survey discovered that 28 per cent of US adults believed a conspiracy concept that urged Bill Gates, the principal founding father of Microsoft Corporation, had deliberate to make use of a possible Covid-19 vaccine to implant microchips to watch the motion of billions of individuals. During a CNN Town Hall interview, Gates referred to as it a “bad combination of pandemic and social media”, including that individuals are searching for a quite simple rationalization. In one other TV interview, Gates mentioned that the reality must be on the market and the conspiracy theories will die down as individuals get the details.Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated hundreds of thousands of {dollars} for Covid-19 vaccine and therapy analysis programmes. In February, the muse pledged to donate $100 million to coronavirus vaccine analysis and therapy efforts and months later, it pledged a further $1.6 billion to the Gavi vaccine alliance.