There is always something weird about an epidemic. One wonders not only how to proceed, but also how the disease suddenly appeared. While researchers initially only express themselves cautiously and explain the limits of current knowledge, there are apparently simple explanations in circulation: rumors that simply stir up fears or want to tell us that someone is behind the disease, that someone benefits. Sometimes the stories have a real core, but not more. An overview.
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Rumor: Bill Gates already knew about the nCoV outbreak in October
On October 18, 2019, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, World Economic Forum, and Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security simulated a pandemic scenario for exercise. This should show, for example, how governments, authorities and companies can best work together in this crisis. At “Event 201” – that was the name of the event – the cause of the global pandemic was a fictitious corona virus. The event could be followed via live stream, the videos are available here.
Because of the rumors now circulating, Johns Hopkins even makes it clear: No, the event did not predict the current outbreak. It was a crisis scenario with an invented coronavirus pandemic, no prediction or forecast. “Even now, we are not predicting that the outbreak will kill 65 million people. Although our exercise included a fictitious corona virus, the models used for it were not comparable to nCoV-2019.”
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In summary: A crisis scenario for a fictitious coronavirus pandemic took place in October. However, it cannot be deduced from this that their participants already knew that an outbreak with a new type of corona virus was imminent.
A similar rumor could also be told about the swine flu pandemic of 2009/2010: In 2007, the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief simulated a worldwide influenza pandemic – as if they knew there was imminent!
Rumor: The virus comes from a biological weapons laboratory
In the Chinese metropolis of Wuhan, which is the center of the coronavirus outbreak, there is a high-security laboratory of the so-called level BSL-4 (biosafety level 4), the highest possible security level. In a laboratory like the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, researchers can work with pathogens that are extremely dangerous for humans, for example the Ebola virus. Protection level 4 laboratories are quite rare. Of course, rumors that an outbreak in a city begins with a BSL-4 laboratory are fueling the fact that the pathogen must have come from the laboratory. Protection level 4 would not be necessary to work on a corona virus: Sars and Mers, as more dangerous representatives of the corona viruses, only fall under protection level 3.
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The fact that epidemics come from the laboratory is not a particularly original rumor, it occurs in many outbreaks. For example, the Ebola epidemic 2014/2015 in West Africa also said that the virus came from a “secret US laboratory”, and there were also theories about HIV.
The Washington Post asked experts whether the novel coronavirus nCov-2019 was generated in a laboratory. They rejected the thesis as unlikely.
Rumor: The corona virus is patented
Another old acquaintance among the rumors surrounding an outbreak: someone patented the pathogen – obviously, in order to then earn a lot of money in the subsequent crisis. Long lists of all patents or patent applications in which the word “coronavirus” appears now appear on various pages. There, for example, there is a patent application for a method that can be used to collect proteins and antigens from cells infected with coronaviruses. Another patent relates to coronavirus vaccination for dogs.
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What can astonish at first: Yes, there are patents that are closely related to pathogens. However, nobody can simply have a virus patented, but has to do something more: for example, weaken a pathogen in a certain way so that it can be used as a live vaccination.
Anyone who thinks that every patent in which the word coronavirus appears is related to the current outbreak is wrong. Because there is not just one corona virus, it is a large virus family – and what helps against one virus does not have to benefit everyone else. The patent holder of the vaccination for dogs will hardly benefit from the outbreak in Wuhan.
Rumor collection via YouTube video: What is supposedly kept secret
In Germany, users distribute anonymously invented reports about illnesses. A YouTube video, which according to the research center “Correctiv” was often shared via WhatsApp, has so far had around 578,000 views. Among other things, it shows allegedly coronavirus infected people in China who simply fall over. The user published his video anonymously, without proof of the origin or the date of his pictures.
The Chinese statements, some of which can be heard in the video, also remain untitled and uncommented. Numerous videos have been uploaded to the user’s YouTube channel, which also describe the forest fires in Australia as constructed.
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“The press presumably keeps all information that is actually available about the corona virus from us,” reads a spokesman in an alarming tone. “The coronavirus pandemic is far worse than you might think.”
This first statement is already exaggerated and misleading. So far, neither the World Health Organization (WHO) nor the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) has described the coronavirus outbreak as a pandemic that would affect many people worldwide.
The approximately ten-minute video further claims that the virus is transmitted through fluids that even increased and prolonged the life force of the virus. The ARD fact finder quotes the Freiburg virology professor Hartmut Hengel on this claim: “Liquids cannot increase the infectivity of a virus. It cannot multiply outside of a host.” In addition, it remains unclear which liquids are in question.
Another claim: the virus also causes a very itchy rash with red spots and a black spot in the middle. This is also wrong: the virus causes respiratory problems, fever and in many cases pneumonia.
While the end of the video shows the alleged scenes from China that the user wants to have secured from social media, he calls on the population to avoid gathering people – and to share his video as often as possible.
The spread of so-called fake news is a worldwide problem. A fact check carried out by the AFP news agency showed, for example, that reports from several regions in France about alleged coronavirus diseases were falsified – the disseminators of these hoaxes used fake photos from news sites of real media to prove their allegations as real.
The AFP fact check was also found to be falsified by a video viewed a thousand times on Facebook, which allegedly showed a market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, which is considered the center of the coronavirus. The video showed bats, rats, snakes and various meats that were sold there – however, the pictures were taken in 2019 from a market in Indonesia.
Various articles in the Weibo, Twitter and Facebook services quoted one of the leading Chinese experts in respiratory diseases as recommending that they rinse their mouths with salt water to protect them from infection. The team around the experts, however, rejected this statement that saline solutions could not kill the new virus.
Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn (CDU) warned again on Wednesday about conspiracy theories surrounding the spread of the corona virus. “Especially in social media there are a lot of people with their own interests who want to unsettle citizens,” he told RTL and n-tv. He had the impression that they “want to undermine the debate in society” from outside or inside.
For this reason, he relies heavily on transparency, he said. It is always difficult to understand which circulating video is real. He could therefore only encourage citizens to get information on official sites beyond social media.
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