Sara’s reply to Editor Jake’s assignment to explore Conspiracy Theories was to look at the furor that often surrounds vaccines. And, all eyes are on a very important yet-to-be-released vaccine.
By Sara Habibipour
According to a Yahoo News/YouGov poll surveying 1,640 people in May, 44 percent of Republican voters (compared to 19 percent of Democrats and 24 percent of Independents) believe that Bill Gates is plotting to use a COVID-19 vaccine campaign as cover for a mass microchip injection campaign in order to “track people.”
The reasoning behind this conspiracy theory is that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has committed millions of dollars to research treatments and vaccines for COVID-19 upon the World Health Organization’s request for donations. These endeavors are now leading people to believe he is monopolizing these research efforts, and therefore taking the opportunity to develop microchips and inject them through a fake COVID-19 vaccination.
The BBC investigated the theory in late May, but said that it “found no evidence to support these claims.” They did, however, point out statements made by Gates in March as a possible spark for the rumor, when he said that at some point “we will have some digital certificates” to show who had been tested for, recovered from, and vaccinated against the coronavirus. The term “digital certificates” seems to have been misinterpreted; The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation told Reuters via email, “The reference to ‘digital certificates’ relates to efforts to create an open source digital platform with the goal of expanding access to safe, home-based testing.”
Gates also denied these claims in June saying to the BBC, “I’ve never been involved in any sort of microchip-type thing,” he said; “It’s almost hard to deny this stuff because it’s so stupid or strange.”
What Scientists Say About the Microchip Theory
According to scientists, the microchip theory is impossible considering the technology we have at the moment.
Anything injected into the body has to be incredibly tiny in order to pass through your blood vessels without causing an embolism (obstruction of an artery). And, even if they happened to be injected successfully, the microchips would probably not even be large enough to carry viable batteries, leading them to have extremely limited lifespans. Even assuming we could build an injectable microchip, we have no way to keep them powered for any length of time.
Similarly, there’s no way the microchips would be able to transmit information independently. The human body is not an ideal environment for data transfer, and a tiny microchip tracker wouldn’t have the power to drive a radio (not to mention the negative immune response the body would probably have to microchips). There are pilot projects for injectable robots and wireless power delivery, but there is not a single system capable of delivering the kind of technological breakthrough required to implement an injectable chip-based tracker.
Not to give the government any hints, but it would be far easier for them to require Google and Apple to install mandatory tracking apps than to develop injectable microchips that can track everyone for the purposes of enforcing coronavirus quarantine.
Conspiracy Theories Editor: Jake Sonderman
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