Fact Check-COVID-19 vaccines are not a ploy to connect people to 5G

Memes sharing the message that COVID-19 vaccines are a ploy to connect people to 5G networks have been shared on Facebook and Instagram. The messaging in the meme is false.

The social media posts read: “They faked this [virus image]. So you will accept this [vaccine image]. So they can biochemically connect you to this [5G tower image].” ( here, here, here, here here ).

One person who shared the meme on Facebook said: “Wake up, put on makeup, and don’t get the 5G Covid “vaccine.” It’s all made up! The lies they keep secret” ( here ).

The SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes the COVID-19 disease does exist ( here ). The World Health Organization (WHO) has said the virus was first identified by authorities in China on January 7, 2020 ( here ).

As of July 14, there have been 187,519,798 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 4,049,372 deaths reported to WHO ( covid19.who.int/ ).

A complete genome sequence of the Sars-CoV-2 virus was released on January 9, 2020 ( here, here) ( here ).

The sequence was obtained in countries around the world in the months that followed ( here ), ( here ), and ( here ).

Variants of SARS-CoV-2 have been identified ( here ) and are being tracked by numerous institutions, including GISAID, which is an open-access genomic database ( here ), ( here ).

Vaccines are not a tool to connect individuals to 5G networks.

Claims that nanoparticles inside vaccines are being used to connect people to 5G began to circulate in online blogs in 2020 and were subsequently shared on social media ( here ) and ( here ).

The term “nanoparticle” is related to the size of a particle that ranges between 1 and 100 nanometers ( here ).

The mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, such as Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, contain lipid nanoparticles, which are used to transfer RNA into cells ( here ), ( here ) and ( here ).

There is no evidence to suggest that these lipids can transfer 5G to cells, nor is there any evidence that 5G can connect to such lipids.

The claim that the vaccines can connect recipients to the internet was addressed in a piece by Dr Archa Fox at the University of Western Australia published in The Conversation ( here ).

The ingredients for the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Oxford-AstraZeneca and Janssen vaccines can be found ( here ), ( here ), ( here ) and ( here ) respectively.

Reuters previously debunked similar claims ( here ), ( here ) and ( here ).

VERDICT

False. The SARS-CoV-2 virus does exist, and vaccines are not a ploy to connect people to 5G networks. The virus was first identified in January 2020 by authorities in China. COVID-19 vaccines cannot connect people to the internet.

This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.

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