Debunking Correlations Between 5G deployments and Coronavirus

[Mick West]

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9e0SP53tCqw


There's a false theory that there's some correlation between the location of deployments of 5G networks and outbreaks of the COVID-19 coronavirus, at that location.

To demonstrate that this theory is false, I'm going to use the COVID-19 tracker on bing.com, and the Ookla 5g deployment map on speedtest.net. This will allow us to identify areas of high and low density for both 5G and COVID-19.

Let's start at the starting point, Wuhan, in Hubei province in China. There's a huge difference between Hubei and the rest of China with Coronavirus. Is this reflected in 5G coverage? No, in fact, there's plenty of other provinces and cites with similar or higher deployments of 5G, and hardly any COVID-19. So no correlation there.

Just over the ocean, there's South Korea. They have WAY more 5G deployments than China, and yet South Korea has been a coronavirus success story, only 200 fatalities, and flattening curve. So no correlation there.

Next people think about Italy, and then Spain, both countries having suffered terribly with over 17,000 details in Italy, 14,000 in Spain, and still growing rapidly after more than a month. Is there lots of 5G there?

Let's have a look. There's a big concentration round here, 893, - but if we zoom in, we see that's actually nearly all, 799, in Switzerland, and in fact, Italy only has seven 5G deployments, and Spain only has 18. Switzerland has a hundred times as many 5G deployments as Italy, but a twentieth the number of deaths. So no correlation there.

What about other COVID hot-spots? If we take a wider view we see Iran and Turkey. Iran has 4000 deaths, Turkey has 800. Both countries have zero 5G deployments. So absolutely no correlation there.

The other big hotspot is New York. 6,000 deaths. Certainly, they have lots of 5G there. But then so do other cities across the US - even nearby in Washington DC and Maryland there's a similar 5G density, but hardly any COVID cases compared to New York, so no correlation there.

Of course, the whole idea of 5G causing Coronavirus is ridiculous. There's no correlation. The virus spreads like a virus, getting a hold in a community, gaining momentum as it infects more people, and responding to social distancing measures while people use their phones more than ever before. It's a brutal nasty virus, but it's just a virus.

 

[johnc]

I had a "discussion" about this with someone earlier today.
I brought up the rollout vs the spread map. The response was "the satellites transmit in 5G also, so it won't stop until they are turned off also"

So then I asked about the spread rate, eg in Australia we had a cruise ship in which lots of people had COVID-19. Sure you could say, maybe the ship was contaminated in some way. But then how do they explain those people then infecting their family members at home when dispersed around the country and even world after the cruise. The response was that I needed to research more and I am a sheep...

 

[Mick West]

The response was "the satellites transmit in 5G also, so it won't stop until they are turned off also"

Did they give any details about what they meant by this? Like which satellites? What do they mean by "5G" here?

From what I've see, 5G via satellite requires a base station (a small one, but still). Your phone does not connect to a 5G satellite.

So perhaps they just think it uses similar frequencies? Satellite TV already is in that part of the spectrum, have people been blaming that for their ills?

 

[Vic Thornley]

Did they give any details about what they meant by this? Like which satellites? What do they mean by "5G" here?

From what I've see, 5G via satellite requires a base station (a small one, but still). Your phone does not connect to a 5G satellite.

So perhaps they just think it uses similar frequencies? Satellite TV already is in that part of the spectrum, have people been blaming that for their ills?

That's interesting. So what other common (old or new) radio frequencies have we all grown up with over our lifetimes that seem to escape the 5G scrutiny. What about radar, CB radio and ham radio, old analogue TV, walkie talkies. I am sure the list goes on further. Why is 5G so different to these forms of broadcasting that it attracts such interest.

 

[Dingo]

Why is 5G so different to these forms of broadcasting that it attracts such interest.

Because it's new. Even if we've already been exposed to radio waves in those frequencies for years, it's easy to go 'the new thing did it!'. General paranoia and distrust of new things.

 

[Mendel]

Why is 5G so different to these forms of broadcasting that it attracts such interest.

In an interview with New York Times journalist and Freakonomics author Stephen J. Dubner, Sandman emphasized "the most important truth in risk communication is the exceedingly low correlation between whether a risk is dangerous, and whether it's upsetting".
[..]

The following [outrage factors] are listed in Covello and Sandman's 2001 article, Risk Communication: Evolution and Revolution [4]

Factor	Risks considered to…	Are less acceptable than…
Voluntariness	Be involuntary or imposed	Risks from voluntary activities
Controllability	Be under the control of others	Risks under individual control
Familiarity	Be unfamiliar	Risks associated with familiar activities
Fairness	Be unfair or involve unfair processes	Risks from fair activities
Benefits	Have unclear, questionable, or diffused personal or economic benefits	Risks from activities with clear benefits
Catastrophic potential	Have the potential to cause a significant number of deaths and injuries at once	Risks from activities that cause deaths and injuries at random or over a long period of time
Understanding	Be poorly understood	Well understood or self-explanatory risks
Uncertainty	Be relatively unknown or are highly uncertain	Risks from activities that appear to be relatively well known to science
Delayed effects	Have delayed effects	Risks from activities that have immediate effects
Effects on children	Primarily affect adults	Risks that appear to put children specifically at risk
Effects on future generations	Pose a threat to future generations	Risks from activities that do not
Victim Identity	Produce identifiable victims	Risks that produce statistical victims
Dread	Evoke fear, terror, or anxiety	Risks from activities that don't arouse such feelings and emotions
Trust	Be associated with individuals, institutions, or organizations lacking in trust and credibility	Risks from activities associated with those that are trustworthy and credible
Media attention	Receive considerable media coverage	Risks from activities that receive little coverage
Accident history	Have a history of major accidents or frequent minor accidents	Risks from activities with little to no such history
Reversibility	Have potentially irreversible adverse effects	Risks from activities considered to have reversible adverse effects
Personal stake	Place people or their families personally and directly at risk	Risks from activities that pose no direct or personal threat
Ethical/moral nature	Be ethically objectionable or morally wrong	Risks from ethically neutral activities
Human vs. natural origin	Generated by human action, failure, or incompetence	Risks believed to be caused by nature or "Acts of God"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outrage_factor

I've bolded the factors that I think apply to 5G. I think in some areas, uncertainty and the impression that the technology creates a column A risk are being manufactured. If you successfully create the impression that this could cause cancer to anyone nearby, that there are unknown risks, and that people don't have a voice when it comes to the introduction of this technology, you suddenly tick a lot more boxes. And in matters of trust and accountability, telephone companies could definitely earn themselves a better position.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

I didn't want to start a thread about this, because it's a single step debunk.

Internet rumor about deaths from vaccinations in Senegal :

Source: https://twitter.com/redpop86/status/1248354569534439424?s



Source: https://twitter.com/crwriter1/status/1248413821229649920?s=20

https://factcheck.afp.com/senegales...-coronavirus-vaccine-which-does-not-yet-exist

A Facebook post shared thousands of times claims seven children died in Senegal after being given a COVID-19 vaccine. This is false; scientists are still working to find a vaccine and Senegal's health ministry told AFP the incident never happened. The video in the post actually shows people gathering after they heard rumours that a door-to-door salesman was vaccinating locals.

"Scandal in Senegal," says a female voice commenting on the footage in French. "There's a guy who came to a house to vaccinate seven children against COVID-19. They dropped dead instantly".

In the video, a crowd of people is seen gathering outside a building where a police car is parked.

The footage has been shared thousands of times across more than a dozen Facebook accounts, with captions in English and French echoing the claim that seven children died after being vaccinated for the virus which has killed more than 94,000 people around the world as of April 10.

 

[Sean_Fontenot]

I had a "discussion" about this with someone earlier today.
I brought up the rollout vs the spread map. The response was "the satellites transmit in 5G also, so it won't stop until they are turned off also"

So then I asked about the spread rate, eg in Australia we had a cruise ship in which lots of people had COVID-19. Sure you could say, maybe the ship was contaminated in some way. But then how do they explain those people then infecting their family members at home when dispersed around the country and even world after the cruise. The response was that I needed to research more and I am a sheep...

Hey johnc. This is pretty easy to disprove as it merely represents misunderstanding of this technology from the person who made this statement. I have a background in Networking/Security and can speak to some of this.

Satellites do not transmit 5G spectrum. The improvement that 5g has on its predecessors is the utilization of millimeter wave spectrum between 24GHz and 72GHz which are categorized in the Extremely high frequency (EHF) range. EHF range can only be used for communications on the ground a little more than half a mile (1KM). The atmosphere absorbs EHF range transmissions so satelite transmission would be impossible. To put that into perspective, the lower boundary of the atmosphere is about 10 miles from earth, but is 300 miles thick. Even the lowest satelites are no lower than 190 miles up....which is extremely low comparably to most communication satellites that are about 22,000 miles above the earth.

"Compared to lower bands, radio waves in this band have high atmospheric attenuation: they are absorbed by the gases in the atmosphere. Therefore, they have a short range and can only be used for terrestrial communication over about a kilometer. Absorption increases with frequency until at the top end of the band the waves are attenuated to zero within a few meters. Absorption by humidity in the atmosphere is significant except in desert environments, and attenuation by rain (rain fade) is a serious problem even over short distances."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_high_frequency

" Due to atmospheric drag, satellites do not usually orbit below 300 km (190 mi)."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit

Of note is the fact that 5G also utilizes the same frequency ranges that 3G and 4G uses as well as EHF ranges. I am not a 5G engineer so I cannot speak to the technical specifications at a protocol layer but I would feel comfortable guessing that the utilization of lower bands is for backwards compatibility with equipment already deployed in the field. You won't be able to get Gbit speeds on lower band ranges, but you will still get speeds as good as your best 4G connections so this allows economies to deploy and adapt new technology in segments. This would allow 5G devices to operate on lower band's and remain backwards compatible for pre-existing deployments for maximal compatibility. This is especially true for less developed nations who may have seen large 3G and 4G expenditures and will be slower at upgrading their infrastructure. Many African nations skipped landlines and leapfrogged straight into wireless cellular networks.

I find that these conversations usually devolve into simple fears about wireless energy being transmitted and that it is harmful. Yet there is and has always been wireless energy all around us our entire lives. Take Television for example which is broadcasted at 698 MHz and 10,000 watts. 5G broadcasts at 700MHz and 1 watt. Or aeronautical radio navigation frequencies at 960MHz at power ranges between 5-50 watts. Your cellphone will receive @ 1W.

https://transition.fcc.gov/oet/spectrum/table/fcctable.pdf

Now lets compare that to the Sun shall we? The sun provides 1340W/M² to the top of the atmosphere and about 340W/M² at ground level (on your skin).

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/EnergyBalance/page2.php

If you are not afraid of 340W of visible light spectrum energy (which is the closest spectrum to ionizing energy, the energy that actually radiate your cells beneath your skin), then why would you be afraid of 1W at the complete other end of the non-ionizing spectrum?

"X-rays and gamma rays have enough energy that during interaction with atoms, they can remove electrons and cause the atom to become charged or ionized. That's why we refer to these as ionizing radiation."

https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/nonionizing_radiation.html

The FDA actually did a meta-analysis on 10 years of Radio Frequencies and Cancer. But a lot of these conspiratorial types hear "FDA" and "CDC" and their brain shuts down. It turns into a big "government conspiracy" and devolves into "who funded these studies! its all collusion between the government and scientists!" crazy talk. So giving them this link may not help you, but here's what you can do.....this meta-study has nearly 300 independent studies cited.

Simply go to the citations at the end, look up the title of the study and copy/paste into google scholar/pubmed. If its behind a paywall you can use sci-hub.tw to get the article. Note that the domain changes on sci-hub as its a cat and mouse game avoiding being shut down, so google sci-hub if that domain is down to find a mirror. Then you can post the research directly without a big "FDA" logo on the meta-analysis. So if someone gives you some crap science thats not even peer-reviewed and no details (equipment used, environment tested, controls, etc) simply start hyper linking to them the 100's of studies that are in direct contradiction of the poor science they are posting.

https://www.fda.gov/media/135043/download

I always find it ironic that the same people accusing scientists of being part of a conspiracy will also use scientists work to validate their claims. Yet the 1 scientist that does bad science is right, but the several hundred of thousand good scientists are wrong.

The thing that is not talked about in regards to this topic but should be controlled/accounted for is the depletion of the ozone layer within the atmosphere. While we are finally starting to see some healing we still had decades where Ultra-Violet radiation was increased due to ozone-layer depleting chemicals being in an abundance in our atmosphere and reducing its efficacy to protect humans from ionizing radiation wavelengths making it through. I do not have any evidence to cite, but we obviously have been able to measure increased UVB's at ground level because of ozone depletion. Even with a healthy atmosphere we know that the sun causes cancer so with a depleted atmosphere it logically follows that we would be more susceptible.

https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/scientific-assessment-confirms-start-of-recovery-of-ozone-layer

Hope this information is helpful.

Other Resources -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G_NR_frequency_bands

 

[Vic Thornley]

Don't know if this will stick. But I am getting pretty much fed up that social media platforms are allowing these vile posts to go unchecked. We should relabel them antisocial media. It is quite evident that these claims are harmful.

 

[Mendel]

 

[johnc]

I have recently seen an increase in people claiming "viruses aren't" contagious.
The line is that viruses are created within our bodies after exposure to 5G or "toxins". Or that you can only get a virus when you are "injected with one from a vaccine"
They are trying to link this pandemic to other viruses throughout history and changes to technology which simply don't line up or make any scientific sense.

One person in particular Tom Barnett has been pushing this line on Facebook and Youtube to his 10,000+ followers.

A quote from his video is he tries to explain what a virus is

For the most part, what needs cleaning out of the cells are environmental toxins like heavy metals, plastics any type of environmental industrial pollutants

He then goes on to say the only way you can "catch a vaccine" is from vaccinations. Quote:

so I guess its time to tell you the only way you can actually catch a virus, so what happens with that incubated virus is that its sterilised and put into a vaccine. straight away, you don't want that cos that's bad news. Then when its added to 70-80 chemicals you really definitely don't want that

Another quote, Tom says

What is a virus anyway, a virus is nothing more than a solvent. These solvents are created within cells, within the body, this is why you cannot catch a virus

In the video he goes on to encourage people to break social distancing rules.

Pull your finger out, get outside and do normal things

Some media outlets have covered this and the removal of the videos https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/h...s/news-story/4fb776821ee8bcdf936a83ab2153ca28

The outlandish conspiracies espoused by Mr Barnett have found support among anti-5G communities too. On March 28, the Facebook page 'We Say NO To 5G in Australia' launched a campaign encouraging people to email their local politicians and news outlets to outline their concerns towards the supposed links between the coronavirus and the rollout of 5G in the country.

Youtube and Facebook have started removing the videos but they are being reposted by other people and to other services even DropBox and Google Drive.

Following the going viral of his video, he double downed the with a followup video.

I can't easily link to any of these videos because they keep getting taken down, I also don't want to add any credit to the dangerous conspiracies.
However a YouTuber Thunderf00t covered some of Tom's claims in part of his own video which can be viewed at


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVJgKeKwEc8


It starts at around the 12 minute mark where Thunderf00t starts by checking his qualifications (Diving Instructor) and then goes into checking his claims including a "virus is a solvent".

This video then talks about the claims of Dr. Thomas Cowan, who also is promoting the same line of thought. It seems to be where most of this line of thinking has started.

The cells get poisoned and they try to purify themselves by excreting debris which we call viruses... in 1918 there was the introduction of radio waves around the world, whenever you expose any biological system to a new electromagnetic field you poison it, you kill some and the rest go into a kind of suspended animation

- Thomas Cowan

He is claiming that satellites distribute radiation to everyone on the planet, "We put satellites which emit radioactive frequencies in the Van Allen Belt"

This site has nicely collected all the claims from various people including some of Thomas Cowan's videos.
http://www.wabiz.org/Home/news/drthomascowanoncovid-19from5g

How long have we known about how viruses work?

What is the best way to counter this and the people that follow him?
It seems at least 100 years of scientific and medical research, observation are suddenly being thrown out the window and people are actually believing it?
Given that we are in the middle of a pandemic it feels more important than ever to counteract this sort of misinformation. It's one thing having a chuckle at flat earthers but then this sort of conspiracy could end up killing people.

I have argued with numerous people on Facebook over this topic. The usual line goes "5G is causing COVID-19" so then I ask "well why does quarantine work to stop the spread" which then gets the reply "quarantine is just to keep us home so they can roll out 5G".

 

[Mendel]

* The "patent" that is making the rounds has 40 pages of viral genome. If each virus is created independently by the human body, then why are they all so similar?
* Viruses are genetic material that gets copied when the virus reproduces, and the copying tends to have a mutation now and then, which means you can trace which other viruses descended from the virus that had that mutation, and kinda build a family tree for them because you can track that genetic inheritance via the virus genomes that get shared internationally on the GISAID database.

The inheritance also matches geographically, you can see how the virus travels in a host to someplace and mutates there, and then its "children" are in that place.
* We can predict who gets sick next by tracing the contacts of the people who are already infected. China did this on a large scale (1800 5-man tracing teams in Wuhan), Germany is doing it at the county level (each county health office is doing it), and for each Covid-19 case that turns up, we used to be able to find out who that patient got it from. This is called an epidemiological link.
* If people got Covid independently, we'd have people turn up at hospitals with inexplicable pneumonias, like they did last December in Wuhan. But everyone who did had an epidemiological link to someone we had already identified with that virus, or came from Italy or Wuhan. This was in February, when the chance of finding someone like that, whom we had identified as having that virus, randomly, was worse than 1 in 10000.

In short:
-- we can predict who gets it next if we look at the contacts of who has it now
-- we can trace the virus transmissions through genetic inheritance
-- neither is possible if 5G spontaneously causes viruses

Knowing what infectious diseases are and how they work is one of the great marks of modern civilisation; if someone tries to make you forget that knowledge, they want you to be a cave man again. These people do not have your best interests at heart, and you should not trust them.

 

[Mendel]

P.S. to my previous post:
the study done on the Munich group is at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3551335

These were the only cases we had in Germany at the time. Because these were our first, this was very well documented by researchers; normally, the county health offices don't publish their work.

 

[derrick06]

View attachment 40279

Hahaha this is awesome!

 

[derrick06]

It's funny how often in similar theories like this you tend to get people picking and choosing data and information that backs up their claim only to get a response like "You're not opening you eyes." Like clearly I am... You didn't look at ALL of the info. The same info you're trying to use to back up your claim. It's odd.