An Idiot’s Guide to Covid Conspiracy Theories
The only thing more rampant than Covid-19 has been the conspiracies it has spawned along the way. Its variants are rapidly evolving, and new outbreaks are happening on random Facebook pages all the time. You might have family who at this very minute are barraging your group chat with the ramblings of a woman who bought a doctorate online and believes in the healing properties of rocks and long walks. This family member might say that they “don’t believe in Covid” but last week said they had it but “It’s not even that bad.”
I say ‘you might’, because you might be me, and I can guarantee that you do in fact have that family member. They’re like Neo in The Matrix, they’ve taken the red pill and now they can dodge bullets. Except instead of dodging, they artfully limbo into every single round.
With this unnamed family member in mind, I have collated my favourite Covid-19 conspiracies into one easily digestible article. Feel free to tear these pages out of the magazine and eat them, for maximum digestion.
Conspiracy #1: Bill Gates 5G Nanobots
Riding high on a wave (pun not intended) of misplaced fear surrounding 5G, it was only a matter of time before people would find a connection between 5G and Covid-19. The first four G’s were harmless, but this 5th G is one G too many! Not only that but it’s all being orchestrated by the world’s most newly eligible bachelor, Bill. Bill Gates! See, the idea goes something like this: Inject everybody with nanobots and… uh yeah, then you’re full of robots, I guess. Think of all the things they’ll do to you. Send your IRD number to the government, or worse, text all your exes on your contacts list while you’re drunk.
There are various strains of this conspiracy. Either the nanobots require a 5G connection to get started, or 5G causes a biological response of some kind which results in Covid-19. This isn’t fun and games though, in the UK at least 20 cellular towers have been torched by proactive freedom warriors. Even NZ has seen some arson, although this has mostly been perpetuated against non-5G towers. I guess you can’t tell just by looking at them which towers are sending your emails and texts for you and which ones are delivering you Covid.
As for 5G nanobots, currently 5G capable tech is about the size of a penny, so you’d probably notice it travelling down the needle if someone tried sneaking it into you. It’s kind of sad that the best defence against this particular conspiracy is “Oh no no no, science isn’t even that cool yet. Give it another 10 years maybe.”
Conspiracy #2: Microchipping
A slight iteration on the last point, according to The Economist and YouGov, one in five Americans believe that the Covid vaccinations are probably a covert way of microchipping us like a household pet. This is being done to track us so Big Government knows where we are at all times. Presumably this also benefits Bill Gates as well as it would make finding hot vaccinated singles in his area so much easier.
This one actually has quite a fascinating basis. In 2019, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation were looking at ways to track medical records in third world countries where electronic records couldn’t be relied upon. The solution that was funded, and consequently dropped around the animal testing phase, involved “quantum dot dye” which would be like an invisible tattoo that doctors would be able to use to quickly understand a patients health records. The dye that was being researched didn’t have the ability to be anything other than paint. But there are conductive tattoos out there, where you can make circuits on your skin. They’re big and clunky though, and it’ll be some time before we can do more than just turn on an LED with them.
Conspiracy #3: Pfizer is a Gigantic Sterilisation Program
The only thing anti-vaxxers hate more than vaccines is rushed vaccines. The timeline that Pfizer has followed sure is a quick one too. The quickest we’ve ever produced a vaccine before now was the mumps vaccine, which took four years.
The misinformation regarding Pfizer destroying fertility spread like wildfire on Facebook as usual after a petition about Pfizer was misinterpreted. This resulted in Google searches regarding the subject to jump 34,900%. The good news is if people are Googling the subject, it means they’re looking for second opinions about what’s happening, and not just listening to what their crazy uncle is saying. Fingers crossed the first result wasn’t another crazy uncle.
If I was going to write a movie about an ecoterrorist villain, this is definitely the method I’d make him use. It’s brilliant. Although I’d make sure the villain isn’t targeting the elderly first for the rollout of the vaccine. Just saying.
Conspiracy #4: Intentional Lab Leak
Now, personally I believe the jury is still out on the general lab leak scenario (Hey, I guess it’s on the conspiracy list!). But honestly, the jury might be out forever this late in the game, and it doesn’t change any of the pertinent facts either way. The lab leak theory lost a lot of credibility and went to crazy town as soon as somebody suggested that it was an intentional biological weapon being developed that got out of hand.
What better way to look innocent than to drop a bio-weapon right outside your own lab, right?
What smart people realised a long time ago was that highly virulent biological weapons can’t be aimed and that there’s going to be a lot of friendly fire. Also what would be the point in debt trapping dozens of countries with your belt and road trade initiative if you were planning on bringing the world economy to its knees? Wait, is that to help them look innocent as well? False flags must have been 50% off when they cooked this one up.
Conspiracy #5: Covid is just an overhyped version of the flu
Above: Just a regular case of the flu prior to anyone developing any sort of immunities.
Downplaying Covid has been a favourite pastime for some. “Come on, it’s only about as bad as something that’s wiped out millions of people” sure reassures me.
Part of me wonders whether years of hyperbole has made people forget what the flu even is. How often have you or a coworker attributed a runny nose to catching “a bit of the flu”. Let me tell you, I got the flu once and the symptoms weren’t that cute. I legitimately thought I’d forget how to walk. All I could ingest was ice. You think people died of the sniffles back when everything was in black and white?
Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, said almost exactly this at the start of the outbreak, suggesting that it was like a common flu and that people should stay at home and see if it clears up. When a sudden spike in cases surged through the country resulting in over 5,500 deaths, he blamed the peasants saying, “People are not taking this virus seriously. Commoners are thinking this is a flu”.
This one is less a conspiracy and more just a misunderstanding of numbers. In fairness, the official numbers around flu deaths is incredibly easy to get tangled in. They’re fluffed up to account for deaths that may have gone unreported.
“These coefficients are based on assumptions of how many cases, hospitalisations, and deaths they believe went unreported,” says Jeremy Samuel Faust, MD. about flu numbers. “In the last six flu seasons, the CDC’s reported number of actual confirmed flu deaths—that is, counting flu deaths the way we are currently counting deaths from the coronavirus—has ranged from 3,448 to 15,620, which are far lower than the numbers commonly repeated by public officials and even public health experts.”
“In fact, in the fine print, the CDC’s flu numbers also include pneumonia deaths.”
“If we compare, for instance, the number of people who died in the United States from COVID-19 in the second full week of April to the number of people who died from influenza during the worst week of the past seven flu seasons (as reported to the CDC), we find that the novel coronavirus killed between 9.5 and 44 times more people than seasonal flu.”
Conspiracy #6: Covid is a Lie
When your entire perception of reality is piped to you via a third party app, it’s easy to convince yourself that maybe not all is as it seems.
Some of the conspiracy community’s favourite personalities have come out swinging in favour of this one. Mostly because literally nothing happens on Earth without the Illuminati or “global elites” having a hand in it. Your car getting towed? Definitely Illuminati – you know too much
This belief that Covid is a massive hoax has had some of the freakiest repercussions, with deniers stalking the halls of hospitals demanding to see ‘The Covid’. One video from the UK showed deniers arguing with tired doctors about taking a patient off ventilators, steroids and antibiotics. They wanted to take the man home to go die on a hearty diet of Vitamin C, D, and zinc. The only way these people would ever be convinced is if one of those floaty balls with tentacles that you see in all the pictures, floated by with a name tag on saying, “Hello My Name Is: Delta Variant”.
Let us consider why the Man would want to make up Covid. Obviously he wants us at home or with a mask on to make sure we aren’t sneaking off making an economy. The Man hates economies. It’s because he’s probably a communist now.
Conspiracy #7: Pfizer Magnetism
It turns out there’s nothing Pfizer won’t do to you. Another common myth that was spread was that if you get both shots, you would get localised magnetism due to all the nanobots. This went viral after a dude balanced a magnet on his mum’s shoulder. Thousands of other people tried it and were disappointed to not have a mediocre new super power. Outside the Covid realm, there have been plenty of people who claim to be magnetic, although they can usually dangle non-metallic objects off themselves as well, and their magnetism is cured once you apply some talcum powder to their gross sticky skin. Friction is the poor man’s magnetism.
Conspiracy #8: The American Virus
Above: A dramatic reinactment of American soldiers airdropping Covid into China.
Not one to take “kung-flu” lying down, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, decided to chuck out a tweet saying, “It’s possible that the US military brought the virus to Wuhan,” giving a megaphone to a theory that had been circulating in China that the US Army had tracked in the virus during the 2019 Military World Games in Wuhan in October of that year. Nobody outside of China took it too seriously though, and it never got much traction with the international conspiracy clubs.
Conspiracy #9: GMO Origins
Above: The fact I photoshopped Zucchini fish for this article means I at least matched the ridiculiousness of the primary subject matter.
What I’ve learnt on this excursion into the world of insanity is that Covid can be co-opted to fit just about any established conspiracy. Anti-GMO people in Italy and Uganda decided that obviously GMO crops were to blame. According to them, genetically modified crops genetically contaminated other stuff until it crossed over to humans. If this was the case, then surely it wouldn’t have had such a hyper-localised early outbreak. The great thing is that their reasoning is so scientifically absurd, I could just make up my own explanation and it’d be just as good. So here I go…
The lab in Wuhan grew the world’s first fish-shaped zucchini and snuck it into the fish market to see whether anybody would be duped by this vegetarian alternative. Unfortunately, it’s true that we become what we eat, and Covid is the first steps toward all of us transforming into zucchinis. After 3 years of incubation in our DNA, we should start seeing the first births of the Zucchildren. They are our future and there’s no escaping them.
Worst Cures for Covid-19
The Darwin Awards have been busy these last two years.
On one hand, we’ve had dismissive attitudes towards Covid, which the bulk of this piece has dealt with. On the other hand, we’ve had fear give way to a new kind of stupidity, in the form of ingesting almost anything as a cure. Trump caught most of the heat for spreading these snake oil cures, but leaders all over the world have been guilty of this.
Cow Piss
Suman Haripriya, a BJP legislator in Assam, India, suggested that since cow piss was so sterile that it might be an effective agent in the fight against Covid-19. “We all know that cow dung is very helpful. Likewise, when cow urine is sprayed, it purifies an area… I believe something similar could be done with ‘gaumutra’ and ‘gobar’ to cure coronavirus.”
Industrial Grade Alcohol
Rumours spread in Iran that high grade alcohol can purge your system of Covid. I guess the logic is that hand sanitiser is mostly alcohol and that seems pretty good at keeping germs in check. The Fars province experienced 13 deaths of Covid-19, but 66 deaths due to people imbibing Industrial Grade Alcohol. Bad information can literally kill you.
Prayers
Now don’t get me wrong, a good prayer now and then doesn’t hurt nobody. But also God didn’t give you arms and legs and a brain just to prostrate yourself at the first sign of trouble. Tanzanian President, John Pombe Magufuli, sure thought it worked though, by stating that the prayers of its citizens had kept the country Covid free. The official records for Tanzania are spotless, not a single case. The trick is to not report them, and doctors have been told not to refer to the virus in public. They have however been able to put out carefully worded reports about upticks in patients requiring oxygen. Deputy Health Minister, Godwin Mollel, has told journalists that reporting Covid numbers would be “counterproductive” as it could spread fear. What we don’t know surely can’t hurt us, right?
USB Flash Drives
Hitching a wagon to the 5G hysteria, a company sold the “Bioshield” USB. It’s a perfectly normal USB drive which supposedly emanates waves to block out 5G and Covid-19. It only costs around $545! Sleuths tracked down the USBs on Ali Express for a couple dollars each. The kicker is that they’re only 128mb. I want at least a 32gig USB if I’m getting conned out of half a grand.
Being Poor
Puebla Governor, Luis Miguel Barbosa Huerta in Mexico, suggested that only rich people need to worry about getting Covid. Perhaps because they’re the only ones that can afford to fly over to Italy to catch it? “If you are rich, you are at risk. If you are poor, no, the poor are immune,” he said in a press conference.
BioCharger NG Subtle Energy Platform
I’m not writing its full title again, but the most subtle part of this BioCharger is how it can extract US$15,000 from gullible purchasers. The Biocharger has been described as a “fancy light machine” by the Australian Medical Association, but it didn’t stop Pete Evans from trying to hawk it. According to him, it had “a thousand different recipes and a couple on there for Wuhan coronavirus”.
Yoga
I’m so stressed out these days and my muscles are so knotted up that even putting my socks on is a challenge, so some yoga would probably be good. Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, stated that Yoga could fix all sorts of things. “With the help of yoga, diseases like blood pressure, heart attack, kidney failure, liver failure and even coronavirus can be dealt with.” This guy sure is a good yoga salesman.
Cocaine
So what you do is snort some cocaine and then boom, no more Covid in your nose, just cocaine. The rumour spread on Twitter, probably as a joke (surely!), enough that the French Ministry of Health had to put out a statement: “No, cocaine does NOT protect against COVID-19. It is an addictive drug that causes serious side effects and is harmful to people’s health.”
Top image Credit: © 2009 Kjetil Ree
