Fact Check-COVID-19 is not a ‘flu variety’ predicted by the Rockefeller Foundation’s ‘lock step’ scenario

The COVID-19 pandemic was not predicted by the Rockefeller Foundation in 2010.

The suggestion was made in a speech viewed 40,000 times (here) by Dutch politician Thierry Baudet (twitter.com/thierrybaudet) who previously made statements rated as false by a European fact-checking project (here).

In an email to Reuters, Baudet said he stands by his arguments made in the video. This check will examine his principle claims.

THE LOCK STEP SCENARIO

Baudet began his speech by outlining a 2010 report by the Rockefeller Foundation (here) called “Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development” (here). Baudet compares the study with the coronavirus pandemic and claims all the report’s predictions have been realised.

However, the report did not predict the 2020 pandemic. The document imagined four “plausible and provocative” narratives, one of which described a post-pandemic world with authoritarian leadership and growing citizen pushback.

This scenario, called “lock step”, outlined a 2012 pandemic caused by wild geese that killed eight million people in seven months, mostly young and healthy adults. It did not predict the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak, which has so far killed 3.7 million people globally (covid19.who.int/).

Reuters debunked this conspiracy in April alongside other false evidence indicating that the COVID-19 pandemic was planned (here).

When Reuters spoke to Baudet about this claim, he said: “The gist of the presented chain of events in the lockstep scenario is surprisingly similar to the reality as we experience it today 10 years later. Including the unusually harsh and intrusive government behaviour.

“This is food for thought and reason for concern. No more and no less.”

THE EXISTENCE OF COVID-19

To corroborate the alleged hoax, Baudet said the world “pretends” lockdowns are for COVID-19, a “flu variety”, while “the thing that we used to call flu has completely disappeared”. This is false.

As Reuters explained previously, the virus that causes COVID-19 is a coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2 and has been isolated by numerous scientists (here), while low flu levels are likely the result of coronavirus measures (here).

GLOBAL CONSPIRACY

Finally, Baudet alluded to a conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was organised by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

He told the Dutch parliament: “This COVID phase has been practice to train obedience… Congratulations, Klaus Schwab will be proud of you. The globalist plans can be carried out and the next step towards mass surveillance and total control can be taken.”

His statement hints at misinformation that the WEF, founded and headed by Klaus Schwab (here), wants to control people and abolish private ownership (here , here).

This conspiracy is often connected with false claims about the COVID-19 pandemic (here), but sometimes conflates with the day’s news agenda, such as the formation of the failed European Super League (here) or food insecurity (here).

VERDICT

False. The COVID-19 pandemic is not a “flu variety” that was predicted by the Rockefeller Foundation in 2010, nor is it a period of training people to be obedient in the face of “total control”.

This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our work to fact-check social media posts here .

*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from Reuters can be found here ***