People Blame Bill Gates and 5G for COVID-19, at Least in Australia
The COVID-19 pandemic is an excellent breeding ground for disinformation and authors of cheap conspiracy theories. Unfortunately, more and more people believe in the content they create, in which they put guilt on Bill Gates and the 5G technology in particular.
- Many Australians admit to believing in the connection between 5G, Bill Gates and the COVID-19 pandemic;
- The older the respondents, however, the less often we come across such statements;
- Belief in conspiracy theories and fake news is somewhat more common in men than women;
- However, Australians are almost unanimous that the pandemic in China was much worse than the government there says it was.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, probably we've all come across breaking news about who or what is behind this disease. Authors of the so-called fake news and poor conspiracy theories most often accuse Bill Gates (why? take a look at the frame below section) and the 5G technology of having caused it .
According to a survey conducted in Australia by Essential Research, 13% Australians believe that it is the creator of Windows who is behind the creation of the deadly virus, and 12% claim that the aforementioned technology is used to infect people.
Wisdom comes with age?
The analysis of this issue is a topic for a big article. In short, and without going into too many details - Gates has been warning for years that humanity is not prepared for a global pandemic, and is involved in the development of a vaccine for COVID-19. On top of that, he happened to mention "digital certificates", which would show who was recently tested for coronavirus or who has already undergone the disease it causes.
Let us have a close look at the results of the survey. Already at the beginning, it is obvious that the older the people that are being asked whether they believe in this type of reports, the less frequently we will get affirmative answers. 20% of Australians in the 18-34 age group believe that Bill Gates was somehow involved in the creation of the coronavirus; the same percent of the same age group also believes that the 5G network is used to spread it around the world.
Fortunately, in the 35-54 age group only 13% of people agree with this, while among people being over 55 years old only 4% of respondents accuse the creator of Windows of creating the coronavirus, while 8% point to 5G technology as a way to spread it.
Or is it a gender issue?
As far as the gender of individual respondents and their answers are concerned, 15% of men admitted to believing in the sinister use of the 5G technology; there are clearly fewer women believing in these reports, only 9%. As for Bill Gates' alleged guilt for the (almost) entire evil of recent months - here the difference is not so great, as 14% of men and 13% of women are mentioned.
Coronavirus in China
However, it is not only Bill Gates and the 5G technology, which are targeted by conspiracy theorists. As it turns out, nearly 40% of Australian citizens that were surveyed believe that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was created in a laboratory in Wuhan (and almost 40% believe that this is not true). However, 77% of respondents believe that the pandemic in China was much worse than officially reported by the Chinese authorities.
Finally, a word on methodology. The survey was conducted on May 14-17, 2020 and was attended by 1073 people.
