Covid-19 has been with us for six months, from
early December 2019 until now, May 2020. It is not going away any time soon.
Another thing that is not going away is the opportunity for perfectly normal
people to believe and share almost any conspiracy theory that you can imagine.
I admit that I have been losing my temper with people, and have probably
endangered some friendships by telling people to stop spouting complete
rubbish.
But rubbish seems to be easy to spread, and
difficult to refute. And so often, it seems that as soon as one theory has been
put to bed, another must be found to take its place. I have come to the
conclusion that some people desperately need Covid-19 to be part of a
conspiracy, and not simply the pandemic spread of a novel virus. Yes, the
situation is pretty fundamentally out of our control, and we like control. Take
away control of someone's life, and they will respond accordingly. Let people feel
they have control, if only in that they have a mental framework within which to
place the happenings of the world around them, and they will thrive and shine.
Throw entire populations into a pandemic and a
not-insignificant number of people will seek any way to reassert
"control", and the best way is to demonstrate a greater understanding
and hidden knowledge. The ability to provide "the answer" gives each
of us a little more control over what is happening around us. We can do that by
trusting the science and "mainstream news", and by reading as widely
as possible. Or we can do that by seeking out the easy answers that prove that
this is not a natural event. A natural event that many leading scientists and
thinkers have been predicting for decades.
So here are some of the conspiracy theories
that I've had fill up my in-box, my Facebook feed, WhatsApp, and otherwise
'reasonable but fringe' websites. Frequently they come with a "watch this
before it is removed from the Internet" or "watch and share before it
is censored". Some of the more outlandish articles have statements like
"Facebook and the MSM (Mainstream Media) are trying to silence me. Support
me getting the Truth out".
I am only mentioning some here. I'm not even
going to attempt to refute any, because frankly I am already exhausted from
doing that when friends sent or told me these "new theories" as to
why Covid-19 is here, or why it is not the such a problem. If they have one
thing in common, it is that they are presented, written or on video, in calm,
authoritative voices meant to soothe by their competence.
There
is a warehouse full of drugs
Before there was even a Lockdown, I sat down
with a friend who told me, conspiratorially of course, that this was baked up
by Big Pharma, and that soon (back in February) there would be an announcement
that a drug exists that can treat Covid-19, and that Big Pharma already has
stockpiles of the drug ready to be distributed. And of course, the shareholders
and the companies special friends and politicians were going to make billions.
Mark my words, billions.
In fact, just like with tobacco companies, the
CEOs of Big Pharma all got into a room and agreed that this time it is
's turn, and next time it will be another company's
turn. I'm now asking them when will the warehouse full of drugs be unveiled. Being
fair, for a short while it appeared that Hydroxycloroquine was exactly that
drug, with warehouses full of the stuff.
It's
just the flu
No, it isn't. Really. We know the flu, and we
have vaccines for the flu. And we will have vaccines for Covid-19 one day, but
not now. And China does not lock down 400 million people and tank it economy
over a flu. In addition, the annual death toll from flu has already been
exceeded, by far. But hey, this is no worse than the flu. Everyone has had it,
and for almost everyone, it has been so mild that they didn't even know they
had it. You'll see, when they can test everyone for antibodies, everyone (or
most people) will already have antibodies.
It
is caused by 5G
Probably the most stupid of the lot, however,
has been the claim that Covid-19 is caused by 5G and electromagnetic waves.
Video after video sent to me from such smart people, showing other so smart
people talking soothingly and authoritatively that viruses actually come from
within the body and are created by 5G and other electromagnetic waves. And, we
should remember that in 1917 electromagnetic energy increased as international
radio systems were introduced. It was almost fun to refute this one, until it
was shared with my once too often. Finally, I started refuting other
conspiracies by saying that whatever they were drivelling on about next was
wrong, because the real cause of Covid-19 was 5G. I’m not sure everyone
understood my irony.
It
is a Bill Gates plot
The hatred and envy embedded in this are
actually quite sad. If he is that rich, and has been focusing on malaria and
other vaccines (and a vast range of other public health issues) for decades, it
must be because he wants everyone vaccinated with a microchip to track
everything we do. Why? Because he is evil. Oh, and (thankfully this has only
been intimated and not overtly stated to me) he must be part of the Illuminati
and the global conspiracy to take away our rights to own guns and not be
vaccinated. Yeah, right.
It
was made in a lab (in China)
No, it wasn't. It may have escaped from a lab
due to clumsy practices, but it was not "made in a lab". I was sent a
video explaining that the virus contains HIV DNA and that the splice-marks were
visible in the DNA. That video seems to have sunk into the bog where it belongs,
though I have every confidence it will resurface again and again. This also
allows for the use of the phrase "China Virus" as a form of
dog-whistle racism. "But it came from China", gets a retort from me of
"then we should be calling it the Kansas Flu, because it did not come out
of Spain, but out of Kansas".
Death
rates are inflated
The reported death rates are false and
inflated. Anyone who dies in a nursing home is counted as a Covid-19 victim.
Well, if anything, the numbers are being undercounted simply because countries
have been overwhelmed by the numbers of death, and the inability to test all
corpses. This is not to say that all
countries have bodies in the streets as was seen in early March in Guayaquil in
Ecuador. Not at all. But in many countries, morgue and mortician services have
been overwhelmed. They are designed to handle a certain number, the average
number, of deaths on any given day or any week. Covid-19 death rates are higher
than these averages.
The
WHO will pay you for "Victims"
In the US, this is "the federal
government pays states more if they have more victims, so Blue states are
exaggerating the deaths for money". This conspiracy theory is a little
more insidious, as in fact the WHO (and the federal government) and other
organisations are providing additional financial support and grants to
countries (or states) with higher deaths. But the reason is pretty simple. Sick
people place a higher economic burden on already stretched resources.
Therefore, in order to mitigate or hopefully avoid a collapse in local
healthcare services, more resources (including financial) are applied where the
need is highest.
Finally,
this is all (China's, the WHO's, Obama's) Fault
A new virus leaps the species boundary, as has
happened at least 2 other times since 2000 (SARS-1 and MERS), or has mutated
from a previous form (various Influenza viruses), yet it has to be someone's
fault. Being able to blame someone or something for the mysterious appearance
of the virus is a way to regain personal control over the narrative.
Instead, maybe we should be looking at how the
pandemic has been managed. In this, we do have a modicum of control, in that most
of us live in or are citizens of countries in which we will be able to express
our confidence in leadership at the ballot box. If we cannot vote in a particular
country, we can at least raise our voices to remind people who can, of the
quality of leadership in their country. New Zealand stands out for effective national
leadership, as does Greece. Both countries have experienced far lower infection
and death rates due directly to the quality of national leadership.
It is easy to contrast that with the United
States and the United Kingdom; two countries in which the national scientific
and health infrastructures should have been able to provide leadership with the
information needed to respond effectively. Both countries have failed. National
“leadership” (or lack of) in the United States continues to be an embarrassment
and is contributing to that country’s shockingly high death toll. But there is
hope, and if the best way to regain control from the conspiracy theorists is to
vote, then there is hope for the US in November, though not for the UK for a
few years.
In
Closing
Some people need conspiracies. Without
conspiracies, the world becomes both tiresome and unpredictable at the same
time, and they have to acknowledge that they do not understand the machinations
that arrive at various outcomes. I've heard perfectly reasonable people tell me
that the "Jews" control the world and that the Washington Post is
the "Rothschild-Post" and thereby explaining why you cannot trust
anything that they write. Pointing out that Jeff Bezons bought it in 20013 just
gets met with puzzlement and a shrug of the shoulders.
Of course, some conspiracies theories turn out
to be right. But Covid-19 is not caused by 5G, Bill Gates is a philanthropist
and not an evil genius attempting to have everyone vaccinated with some
"mark of the beast", and no, Covid-19 was not manufactured by
pharmaceutical companies as a way of making billions of dollars. We don't need
conspiracy theories to understand how this happened; we need only look at the
incompetence of leadership in so many countries.
Unless incompetent leadership is itself the conspiracy?
