TRUMP 2024

[blackhawks]

No, 5G didn't cause the coronavirus pandemic

Influencers and Russia have linked the virus sweeping the globe to the new, super-fast wireless technology. They're wrong.

Shara Tibken

March 18, 2020 11:12 a.m. PT

https://www.cnet.com/news/no-5g-didnt-cause-the-coronavirus-pandemic/

As the coronavirus sweeps the globe, so to do rumors about what caused it or how it's spread. One that has gained steam online is that new 5G networks caused the disease. That's completely wrong. Radio waves don't create viruses, which is what causes COVID-19.

Keri Hilson, an American singer with 4.2 million followers on Twitter, on Sunday sent several tweets that attempted to link the coronavirus to 5G. She wrote: "People have been trying to warn us about 5G for YEARS. Petitions, organizations, studies...what we're going thru is the affects [sic] of radiation. 5G launched in CHINA. Nov 1, 2019. People dropped dead."

Others on YouTube and Facebook, including an anti-5G Facebook group, have also shared false claims. A Facebook user named Ben Mackie earlier this month linked 5G to the coronavirus, saying in part that it's not actually a virus. "They are trying to get u scared of a fake ass virus when it the 5G towers being built around the world," he said. He also claimed that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates invented the technology and that it's an effort to depopulate the world. And Mackie said that vaccines being developed for the coronavirus are actually chips that will be implanted in people.


(Editor's note: We are not linking to these posts because they contain falsehoods.)


Those claims were debunked by FullFact, a UK fact checker, and other experts have chimed in.

"This story about 5G has no credence scientifically and is certainly a potential distraction, as is other such misinformation, from controlling the COVID-19 epidemic," said Dr. Jonathan M. Samet, a professor at the Colorado School of Public Health.

Brendan Carr, who serves on the Federal Communications Commission, on Monday tweeted that Hilson's effort to link 5G to the coronavirus "is straight from the most dangerous depths of tin foil hat land."

He noted that COVID-19 is a virus that's spread person-to-person contact, not by radio waves, and he reiterated that the FCC, Food and Drug Administration, and Environmental Protection Agency all say 5G is safe.

5G is the new, super-fast wireless technology that's been rolling out across the globe. In the US, major cities like New York and Dallas have live 5G networks, and it's live in areas like China and the UK.

The technology is poised to change the way we live and is expected to power everything from self-driving cars to advanced augmented reality experiences. The belief is whatever country leads in 5G will lead the world over the coming decades and possibly longer.