Paranoid Claims and Inadmissible Theories for COVID19 and 5G

What are some people now claiming is the cause of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic? How about 5G? No, not a stack of $5000 but 5G, which stands for the fifth generation of Internet communications technologies.

Yes, add yet another conspiracy theory to the growing list of conspiracy theories. This time some folks on social media are blaming 5G for causing the pandemic that has already afflicted over 1.5 million people and killed over 90,000 people. That’s 5G, the technology that is supposed to make mobile and Internet communications much, much faster.

Oh, 5-jeez, how could telecom possibly be related to the spread of a respiratory virus? Well, one variation of the theory is that there is actually no COVID-19 coronavirus. In other words, those pictures of the virus that you see on the news, that testing that you hear famous people are getting, and that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) that doctors and scientists seem to be battling are all part of some elaborate hoax. The virus is supposedly like love at first sight. It doesn’t really exist. Instead, this theory claims that the radiation from 5G is what’s actually causing COVID-19 symptoms.

Another variation of the conspiracy theory asserts that radiation from 5G can weaken your immune system to the point that you are more easily infected by the COVID-19 coronavirus. So the claim is that the advent of 5G is what has allowed this virus to spread as it has.

Holy conspiracy theories, Batman. Does this then mean that all those patients, doctors, nurses, other health care professionals, scientists, public health officials, journalists, policy makers, school officials, businesses, and countless others are in on the hoax, coordinating this massive scam? That would be amazing. Heck, just getting doctors and scientists to agree on something can be like trying to herd a bunch of cats with some pickles.

The claim here is that since more COVID-19 cases are appearing in locations where more 5G towers are present, the two must be linked. After all, doesn’t correlation automatically mean causation?

The answer is absolutely not. Correlation alone does not mean causation. For example, if you were to map out the number of times people laugh and fart at the same time, which incidentally is called “larting,” you’d probably see a similar geographic distribution. Why? Is larting somehow causing COVID-19? Or do 5G towers go up every time enough larting occurs? No, because there is at least one big confounder at play here that is driving these three things: population density. Places in the U.S. with more people are more likely to have more 5G towers just because more people means more telecommunications demand. Such locations are also more likely to have a greater number of COVID-19 cases because a larger number of people interacting closely offers more opportunity for the virus to spread. Then there’s the larting. More intestines and more people to experience merriment equals more potential larting.

Online conspiracy theories have been trying to link the novel coronavirus pandemic to the rollout of 5G technology recently. Despite there being no scientific links, multiple 5G towers have been set on fire in the UK. Theories shared on Facebook, Youtube and Instagram are being widely spread, leading the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to very clearly state: “5G technology does NOT cause coronavirus.”

None of the conspiracy theories that try to link 5G and the coronavirus even make sense. The virus is spreading in countries without access to 5G, the frequencies from 5G can’t harm your body, and COVID-19 is caused by a contagious virus that is in no way related to electromagnetic waves. Even the general correlation between 5G and COVID-19 doesn’t stand up to scrutiny: they’re both global phenomena happening at roughly the same time, but as soon as you look at specific countries, the correlation falls apart.

Professor Stephen Powis, a medical director for NHS England in the UK, called the links between 5G and the coronavirus “outrageous” and “absolute and utter rubbish.” The UK government has also branded the claims “dangerous nonsense” and labeled conspiracy theories “crackpot.”

Some of these theories suggest that the novel coronavirus can be transmitted through 5G or that 5G suppresses the immune system. Both are untrue. To understand why 5G and the virus aren’t linked, you have to understand why 5G radio waves aren’t powerful enough to damage the cells in your body alone or transmit a virus. Much like 4G or 3G before it, the radio waves used in 5G are low frequency and non-ionizing radiation. These are on the opposite end of the electromagnetic spectrum to ionizing radiation sources like X-rays, gamma rays, and ultraviolet rays.

These 5G radio waves simply aren’t strong enough to heat your body and weaken your immune system. “The idea that 5G lowers your immune system doesn’t stand up to scrutiny,” explains Simon Clarke, associate professor in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, in a recent interview with the BBC.

Likewise, radio waves and viruses aren’t transmitted in the same way. The novel coronavirus spreads from one person to another, typically through tiny droplets of saliva produced when a sick person coughs, sneezes, or breathes. The only types of viruses you can transmit via radio waves are ones that affect computers, not humans.

Other facts that really bring this 5G conspiracy theory crashing back to the realms of reality is that the pandemic has hit counties like Iran, India, and Japan where 5G isn’t even in use yet. Iran has only just reportedly finalized its regulations on 5G, with plans to roll out the technology later this year. Iran currently has more than 66,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Japan only just started rolling out 5G services in the past week, and India’s 5G launch may even be delayed because of the pandemic. At the same time, South Korea has had 5G towers in place for a year now, and it only began seeing COVID-19 cases after the Wuhan outbreak.

The broader 5G fears have largely been addressed by regulators, scientists, and independent groups. While some implementations of 5G use millimeter-wave (mmWave) band transmissions, a higher frequency of radio waves than 4G or 3G, regulators in the UK have recorded 5G electromagnetic radiation levels well below international guidelines. The International Commission on Non‐Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) also found no evidence suggesting 5G poses a risk to human health.

A lot of these coronavirus 5G conspiracy theories have originated from active disinformation campaigns. A New York Times report from last year warned that Russian campaigns were actively exploiting 5G health fears. RT America, a Russian government-funded TV network, aired a report more than a year ago in which an RT reporter claimed 5G “might kill you.”

A European Union task force has also been tracking many of the disinformation campaigns, warning that “some state and state-backed actors seek to exploit the public health crisis to advance geopolitical interests.”

Many of the recent fringe theories appear to have originated from a Belgian newspaper that published a scientifically baseless claim that “5G is life-threatening” and tried to link the origins of the pandemic to the rollout of 5G technology in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the novel coronavirus originated. The general practitioner quoted in the article admitted, “I have not done a fact check,” but that didn’t stop conspiracy theorists from immediately spreading it far and wide on English-speaking Facebook pages.

After the spate of cell tower attacks, UK mobile operators are calling on members of the public not to spread the false claims. “Please help us to make this stop,” the top four UK mobile operators pleaded in a joint statement earlier this week. “If you witness abuse of our key workers please report it. If you see misinformation, please call it out.”

One point addressed by the 5G-coronavirus theories is that COVID-19 came from China because that's where most 5G network towers are. While China does have service in many areas, 5G came to South Korea and parts of the US first. The US hasn't seen major numbers of coronavirus until the past couple of weeks. COVID-19 also has spread to areas without 5G, like Iran and Japan.

"There appears to be no dispute that animals are the source of the coronavirus, according to experts like the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control," said CTIA, the wireless industry trade association, said.

Lastly, this isn't the first time that 5G has been a target of conspiracy theories. Russia, which has sown misinformation and influenced the 2016 US presidential election, has included 5G as one of its target areas. Broadcaster RT America, which is funded by the Russian government, a year ago published a report called "5G Wireless: A Dangerous 'Experiment on Humanity'" that sought to create fear about the technology. The New York Times at the time said it was an effort by Russia to slow the US push for 5G.