The 5G Coronavirus Hoax: Or How I Got Polio From FDR’s Old Flashlight?

Given that the belief is straight out off Trump’s climate change denial playbook, does the idea that 5G internet networks causes COVID 19 more dangerous than the pandemic itself?

By: Ringo Bones

The dismissal of the COVID 19 pandemic as a hoax and questioning of scientific experts is straight out of President Trump’s, and other right-wing populist demagogue’s, playbook of climate change denial that got them elected in the first place. The 5G theory about radio waves transmitting or activating the virus, for example, is a reworking of long running conspiracy fears about mind control experiments, subliminal messaging and supposed United States military weapons projects that has since been a staple of Hollywood’s TV and movie industry way before the runaway mid 1990s success of The X-Files. Add to that an utter lack of how science works of most of Trump’s supporters and it is no longer a mystery that the belief that 5G internet networks causes and spreads the COVID 19 virus is very popular in the United States.

The 5G coronavirus conspiracy theories, and related Trumpism hoaxes, are particularly challenging to debunk by normal educated people with a working grasp of science – never mind tenured government scientists - because they bring together people from very different parts from the political spectrum. On the other hand, they attract the far-right Trump supporters who see them as part of a technological assault by big government and the “rich liberal elite” on the freedom of individuals. On the other, they appeal to the well established “anti-vaxxer community” who are often allied with those distrustful of Big Pharma. Getting COVID 19 from 5G internet networks is probably like someone getting polio from FDR's old flashlight by shining it into their face - seriously? 

President Donald J. Trump’s Coronavirus Hoax: The World’s Most Dangerous Hoax?

Given that he actually labeled the coronavirus health emergency as a “hoax” in his South Carolina reelection rally back in February 28, 2020, is President Trump perpetrating the world’s most dangerous hoax?

By: Ringo Bones

During one of his so-called reelection rallies in South Carolina back in February 28, 2020, President Trump actually labeled the coronavirus as a hoax and said Democrats are trying to use the coronavirus to damage him – and called that “their new hoax”. And more recently, President Trump even jokingly remarked that Hillary Clinton’s e-mails caused the coronavirus pandemic. This was after a growing furor over the Trump Administration’s lackluster response of a growing global public health emergency declared by the World Health Organization after the disease spread at an alarming rate from China near the end of January 2020.

Donald Trump has a long history of branding things he doesn’t like as “hoaxes”. Trump used the word to dismiss the Russia collusion investigation and the more recent impeachment as a hoax. Worse still, President Trump enacted an executive decision to slash the budget of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention back in 2018 focused on eliminating the funding of Obama era disease security programs and also of the Health and Human Services. Back in 2018, the White House eliminated a position on the National Security Council tasked with coordinating a global pandemic response.

During a federal government budget proposal meeting for the 2020 US Government Budget held back in 2019, the Trump Administration sought to cut the CDC’s annual budget for the fiscal year 2020 by as much as 16-percent. On average, the Trump Administration had been slashing the annual budgets of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services by almost 15-percent on an annual basis since 2018.