Crazy Theories About Coronavirus: Bill Gates, Fasting Bleach and the Umbrella Corporation

We look at the false theories that have already been invented around the coronavirus.

Not everyone is capable of keeping critical thinking during a crisis, and the outbreak of the COVID-19 coronavirus has once again confirmed this. We have already written about how conspiracy theories about the Ebola led to riots in African hospitals and ended in several violent deaths of doctors. Now groups of concerned citizens are spreading biased fabrications about the virus from Wuhan: here is a selection of false theories, and some of them are more dangerous than the virus itself.

Coronavirus is cured by meditation

You have surely come across members of the new religious movement Falun Gong while walking along Khreshchatyk: there they practice exercises and protest against the persecution of their brethren in China. Their teaching is based on qigong exercises, which are actively practiced by Western celebrities, encouraged by Gwyneth Paltrow.

The organization is banned in China, and the Falun Gong information campaign on the coronavirus seems almost like revenge for that ban. Judge for yourself: the sect's followers suggest treating coronavirus symptoms... with meditation.

The international Falun Gong website regularly publishes "news" about how qigong practice has cured this or that novice of leukemia or kidney failure, but in recent days its authors have moved on to a topical agenda: they reported a case of recovery from coronavirus symptoms after repeating the mantra "Falun Dafa brings good." The 80-year-old man, miraculously healed in this way, never went to a hospital, so the link between the coronavirus and his illness is, to put it mildly, doubtful.

Coronavirus is a US biological weapon

Not wasting time on stories about bat soup, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the Russian LDPR party, immediately played his trump card: the version that the coronavirus is a US provocation in the trade war with China.

"American pharmaceutical companies are surely involved here, they are making money this way. The main goal is to strike at China's economy and undermine its economic power," he said.

The US State Department indignantly responded to such fakes by Russian trolls and called on people not to distract the public from the global fight against the epidemic. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova retorted that the American side itself spreads fakes when it accuses Russia of fake news.

The authors of the conspiracy theories did not take part in this exchange of pleasantries: they already know how everything really happened.

Coronavirus was created by Bill Gates

This fake was pushed on platforms such as 4chan, in anonymous Telegram channels and on TikTok, a social network that at the same time distracts young people from news about the coronavirus and pushes them to spread fabrications about the disease for the sake of likes.

The notorious rumor claims that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation sponsored the development of the COVID-19 coronavirus, which became the basis for a patent registered in 2015 by the Pirbright Institute.

In fact, the patent concerned avian coronavirus, just one of the forms of this vast family of viruses. Bill Gates was merely one of the institute's sponsors, but in the eyes of anti-vaccination activists and supporters of conspiracy theories such as QAnon he instantly turned into a grey cardinal who unleashed COVID-19.

China is secretly burning millions of corpses

According to the latest data, about 2.9 thousand people have died from the coronavirus in China. But paranoia promoters claim that the real death statistics amount to millions. Or at least will amount to millions: in Sri Lanka, a false news story is being widely reposted claiming that Chinese doctors predicted the complete extinction of Wuhan (population 11 million).

Although a computer simulation of a coronavirus pandemic was conducted last year, and the program concluded that the disease would take 65 million lives over a year and a half, scientists point out that a simulation is not the same as a prediction. Moreover, its input data differed from the real COVID-19.

Nevertheless, British tabloids picked up the hysteria about millions of dead and even found confirmation of it: screenshots from a weather website showing high levels of sulfur dioxide in Wuhan, allegedly the result of intensive crematorium work in the region. Scientists object that sulfur is a by-product of various types of fuel, and such a level of SO₂ could have arisen from burning ordinary garbage or even the decay of organic products.

Salt water and bleach will destroy the coronavirus

The tale that rinsing your mouth with salt water is enough to protect against the coronavirus spread on the Chinese social network Weibo, but reached Twitter and Facebook. The long-suffering WHO had to refute this claim (along with dozens of others: on its MythBusters page the organization patiently explains that neither garlic nor sesame oil is a panacea for the infection).

But rinsing with a salt solution will at least do no harm to a fan of home medicine. Some American troll bloggers spread a far more dangerous myth: that the coronavirus is cured with the substance MMS (Miracle Mineral Supplement), which is essentially industrial bleach. Moreover, it is to be consumed... orally, as a food supplement.

Regulars of ultra-right imageboards have long claimed that the chlorine-based product MMS cures everything: from HIV and malaria to flu and autism. The American Food and Drug Administration urges citizens not to drink bleach, but even after fatal cases in the US, conspiracy theorists from QAnon continue to insist on its benefits.

Some bloggers read on packages of the Lysol cleaning product that it destroys the human coronavirus and expressed bewilderment: could pharmaceutical companies have known about the upcoming outbreak and kept silent? In fact, human coronaviruses have been known since the 1960s, so rushing with pitchforks and torches to chemical plants would be ill-advised (as would drinking liquids not intended for that purpose).

The coronavirus is spread via 5G for artificial population control

It seems that the crazier a theory is, the easier it spreads on social networks: the version that global elites transmit the coronavirus through 5G networks has gathered thousands of reposts, even though the phrase "digitized ribonucleic acid is activated by 60 Hz waves" is hard to say to yourself without choking with laughter.

But there really are people in the world who believe that 5G towers are instruments of remote killing. The authors of this conspiracy theory call their radiation "smart dust" and insist that the liner Diamond Princess was equipped with 5G for a reason. They also claim that the Roman numeral V (five) is the first letter of the word virus. What other proof do you need?

Dark-skinned people have immunity to the coronavirus

During epidemics, a couple of racist theories about their origin or spread always surface, and the COVID-19 outbreak has been no exception. First, tabloids claimed that only Chinese people were getting sick with the new virus, then they dug up a video of people eating bats, and finally they reached the place the virus itself had not spread to: Africa.

A false theory claims that dark-skinned people have additional layers of skin (!) through which the coronavirus cannot penetrate. This allegedly is confirmed by the fact that the only infected African (a native of Cameroon studying in China) recovered quickly, but he should thank antibiotics for this, not his origin.

There is no evidence that the African climate or the "special blood" of people in sub-Saharan Africa prevents the virus from spreading. But the fact that with a weak healthcare system and open air traffic with China, only three people in Africa have fallen ill is indeed puzzling medical experts.

A real Umbrella Corporation is located in Wuhan

Did you think the plot of the cult games Resident Evil and the films of the same name with Milla Jovovich was made up by screenwriters? Wake up! Look at the sign on the biolab in Wuhan: it is practically a copy of the logo of the villainous Umbrella Corporation, which infected the world with a zombie virus.

If jokes about the link between the coronavirus and Corona beer were not enough for you, hold on: on Twitter they claim that corona is a slightly altered anagram of the word Raccoon (Raccoon City is a fictional town that fell victim to the virus in the game). The picture with similar umbrella logos quickly moved from memes into conspiracy theories.

Could it be that evil scientists not only released a deadly weapon but also decided to troll innocent people? In fact, the laboratory in the photo is not in Wuhan but in Shanghai: the distance between these cities is 800 km. In addition, the company Shanghai Ruilan Bao Hu San Biotech Limited specializes in DNA tests. But the sign really should be changed.

Meanwhile, cases of infection have already been recorded in 70 countries, and adequate dissemination of information about the virus is becoming critically important. Many internet companies and social networks have already responded to the wave of fakes.

For example, Amazon said it will remove fake protective items and hastily written books by pseudo-experts about the "satanic" origin of the coronavirus from its platform. Google uses the SOS Alerts feature to collect accurate information about the infection, and TikTok, when searching by the hashtag #coronavirus, suggests visiting the WHO website.

Marina Moynihan, TK Media