Covid-19 and 5G mobile technology
On 15th Feb 2020, the WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was quoted as saying, ‘We’re not just fighting an epidemic; we’re fighting an infodemic’. What he was referring to is the global spread of misinformation
There is so much information out there that it is often hard for people to tell what is truth and what is a lie. It is also hard to understand why certain bits of misinformation flourish much more than others.
One example is the claim that 5G mobile technology is the cause of Covid-19. So successful has this conspiracy theory been that people have vandalised phone masts in the UK (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-52164358) and scientists and politicians have come forward to debunk this myth ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52228046 ;
https://news.sky.com/video/coronavirus-gove-dismisses-5g-conspiracy-theory-as-dangerous-nonsense-11968624 ).
Fears about the impact of mobile technology and human health have been around for a while. When mobile phones first came into common use, fears that they would cause harm to the body were common and with each advancement in technology, there have been unwarranted health fears tagging along. For a better look at this history, check this website
https://fullfact.org/online/5g-and-coronavirus-conspiracy-theories-came/ .
The current conspiracy theory linking 5G mobile technology to Covid-19 is not just a mild annoyance. In the UK, over 20 phone masts were vandalized over this Easter weekend (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52281315).
Never mind the fact that countries that have no 5G mobile technology , like Iran and Ecaudor are facing a huge Covid-19 outbreak. This theory has continue to spread and draw many people in.
One of the super-spreaders of this misinformation is a former reporter, David Icke. He put up a rather long video on YouTube ‘explaining’ this conspiracy theory. YouTube and Facebook have been quick to pull this video as soon as it is spotted. Someone in Kenya forwarded the YouTube link and I had a chance to view it – close to 30 minutes of extraordinary drivel.
It is hard to imagine why the video has gained such traction.
Many of the images in the video had no bearing to what he was talking about and the essence of the conspiracy is biologically meaningless. It seems to have escaped David Icke’s notice that the coronavirus life cycle was published in 2004
(https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/jmv.20095), so 5G, as a new technology does not add explanatory power to existing knowledge. It is redundant.
The video claims that exposure to 5G mobile technology ‘radiation’ leads to poisons accumulating in the body. These poisons then generate viruses which the body rids off through sneezing.
To state that 5G wavebands cause human cells to generate viruses because of ‘accumulated poison’ is total and complete nonsense. Some other conspiracy theories claim that 5G mobile technology lowers the body’s immune response to disease and we could go on and on about these theories.
I am tempted to rant about an education system, that is so focused on exams and league tables, that after years of sitting in biology classes, so many people are falling for something that is biologically impossible.
Viruses cannot just spontaneously come into being – they are some of the most vulnerable parasites as they need animal cells to provide the basic machinery to replicate and cannot on their own produce offspring – so how can they spontaneously come into existence as a result of ‘poisons’.
Later in this video, this fellow starts on another line. That a vaccine against Covid-19 will be produced in a matter of months and that the virus will be in the vaccine.
At this point, I wanted to stop watching the video – this fellow had just wasted 10 minutes telling us that the virus was a result of 5G mobile technology poisoning out bodies and now he was shifting gears, telling us the vaccine, that is yet to be produced, would be loaded with the virus.
At a time where there are almost 2 million people in the world already infected with the virus – with no vaccine in sight – this again made absolutely no sense.
This video has been uploaded and pulled down by various video-sharing platforms on the internet several times. Perhaps one of the reasons why it is gaining so much traction is the fact that people are suspicious of censoring. Some feel that the speed with which the video is pulled down is a sign that it has some important information that ‘they’ (whoever they are) don’t want you to see. The notion that the forbidden is sweeter. There is something to be said about censorship and the breakdown of trust – but that is a story for another day. Back to 5G and conspiracy theories…….and the super-spreader David Icke…
But David Icke has a reputation of coming up with very weird ideas.
He was interviewed by Jon Ronson for a book titled ‘Them’ that was published in 2001. You can find a small bit about David Icke on this link
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1823.Them
At that time David Icke was pushing yet another conspiracy theory that
‘the global elite, the illuminate, who dominate every aspect of our lives are genetically descended from an extra-terrestrial race of reptiles who came to earth some time ago in the form of humans, who are capable of changing their shape….’
At that time, many thought that David Icke was a racist. Some were concerned that Icke was using the word lizard in a metaphorical sense and being anti-seminitic. The author of the book, Ron Johnson concluded from his conversation with Icke, that his conspiracy theory was a lot simpler. That Icke actually believed that the world is literally ruled by giant lizards.
I don’t want to play about with the mental state of another human being – based on his track record though, there is something not completely OK with the ideas that David Icke comes up with and they are of absolutely no value.
One thing for sure is Icke is no fool. He is great at picking the moment to strike. When he came up with the theory about lizards, younger people were getting tired of capitalism. A system that seeks to keep a small group extremely rich while the vast majority of people in the world remain poor. Capitalism has resulted in wealth for a few. And so for those few to be lizards – non-human ……….was comforting for some reason.
Now with Covid-19 – many are seeking something or someone to blame.
Perhaps it is driven by the fact that an infectious disease outbreak of such proportion is something that most expected to happen in Sub-Saharan Africa but not in Europe. Only in a Hollywood movie would mass graves as a result of deaths from an infectious disease be dug in New York. Yet this is what is happening now and it is scary. Many of us are seeing the numbers on TV and on newspapers of the deaths in Italy, Spain, UK and USA and it all feels so unreal.
That sense of helplessness needs to be soothed and some find it easier to have something or someone to blame because we can do something about it. Some have blamed Chinese people
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/24/coronavirus-us-asian-americans-racism. Ironically, Chinese are blaming Africans who have been kicked out of their homes in Guangzhou provinces
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/african-students-mistreated-evicted-china-coronavirus-200412100315200.html. Some have blamed the slow response of governments, some are blaming the World Health Organization and calling for the director-general to step down and the list goes on and on.
And then they have found something that is most widespread in China and spreading to Europe and other developed nations – 5G mobile technology. And they have clung to this theory and believe it to so much, they are willing to destroy phone masts and to buy ‘anti-5G’ clothes.
It makes me wonder whether we need a different type of education system – where learning is based on touching and feelings things, connecting us to the earth. If someone who has been through high school believes that ‘poisons’ spontaneously generate viruses in the body, then our education systems, across the world, have failed us.
Although our knowledge of the world around us is growing as new techniques are developed that shed more light on what is around us, our science curriculum has not kept up. How many of you reading this blog know how your mobile phones work? I will be honest with you that I know very little!
There needs to be an emphasize on teaching how to differentiate outright lies, half-baked truths and scientific evidence as it stands to date. But this is hard to do if we lack basic knowledge of our changing world.
The battle for ‘Truth’ has often been thought about in religious terms, a spiritual battle – but the battle for ‘truth’ is also a health one.
It is time for those who are well-informed to really engage – not in a condescending way, but in a respectful way, with the public and give the truth a fair chance.
