Since the beginning of the Covid19 pandemic I have heard various rumors regarding the virus. Most all of these rumors have come from people who read that bastion of knowledge, that haven of academia, that font of truth, Facebook.
I do not know why people have not yet realized that any information reported by their “friends”, on Facebook is not necessarily accurate and likely false. I think it has something to do with the fact that people can no longer tolerate uncertainty. When they see something that conforms to the way they think, even if it is ridiculous, they jump on the bandwagon and repeat whatever backs up their perspective. With so much information readily available, people do not bother to ask themselves whether or not something makes any sense or is logical. After first being frustrated at people’s lack of logic regarding these rumors, I realized how comical the rumors were and decided to do a little analysis.
- THERE IS A CURE!
- THERE ARE ONLY MORE CASES BECAUSE THERE IS MORE TESTING!
- HOSPITALS GET PAID!
- THE VIRUS CAN’T SURVIVE IN THE HEAT!
- MASK WEARING TECHNIQUE!
- MASK WEARING IS SIMPLY A WAY FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO CONTROL EVERYONE.
Number 1 above refers to the rumor that there is actually a “cure” for COVID-19, but the pharmaceutical companies are not willing to let the public have this cure because the price the pharmaceutical companies get for the cure is too cheap. Therefore the pharmaceutical companies are secretly hoarding this cure until the price they can get for it goes up and they can make more money.
There are so many things wrong with this idea, it is hard to know where to begin. Let me start with the most obvious problem which is that this rumor does not have a single specific piece of evidence. It simply lumps all pharmaceutical companies together as if they are all one company rather than competing businesses.
Speaking of business, this leads to another thing wrong with this rumor. Let us say that a company could get $1 for every dose of their miracle cure. Assuming that at least 1/7 of the people in the world would want this cure and there are 7 Billion plus people in the world, that equals a minimum 1 Billion dollars. There simply are not any companies that I know of that would say, “No, we don’t want a billion dollars and the possibility of being the company known for creating this cure and thereby creating multiple other business opportunities for ourselves”. I could go on about this one, but let us keep moving forward.
Rumor number 2 above absolutely begs for the still popular elementary and teenage phrase of the century, “DUH!” Stating that there are more positive cases because there is more testing is like saying, “If you have one basket of apples and you add another basket of apples, you have…TWO BASKETS OF APPLES.” I am not sure what people were trying to prove with this statement. For some reason, I think people thought this was a bad thing, instead of realizing that finding out more people were sick is one of the only ways to actually help those sick people.
Rumor number 3, “Hospitals get paid when they say people died of Covid” is one of my favorites. This rumor is accusing hospitals and furthermore, doctors, of falsifying information regarding causes of death, as well as accusing hospitals and doctors of letting people die so that the hospital can get more government money.
First of all, I am not sure from which government program this money is coming, as the rumor of course does not specify. Personally, I think it comes from the cabal of Jews who secretly control the world financial industry.
Secondly, this rumor accuses doctors and hospitals of going against the Hippocratic oath. “First, do no harm.” I think letting people die for the sake of monetary gain goes against this oath. Not to mention the fact that falsifying causes of death is most likely a crime.
Rumor number 4 that the virus can’t survive in the heat was proven false when most of Africa and India got sick. For those that do not know, those places are hot basically all the time. As if that were not enough, when colleges and universities began letting their athletes return to practice, one of the first places to have to shut down their return to play program because of an increase in positive tests was the University of Houston where it is hot most of the time as well.
Number 5 above isn’t a rumor so much as it is a critique of mask wearing technique. We have all seen, and possibly been guilty of this ourselves as well, people walking around with the mask under their nose or down around their chin or one of my personal favorites, over the nose but having the bottom somehow flopping around instead of form fitting around the mouth. A recent guest on the Rich Roll podcast had the best comment (if a little off-color) which I will paraphrase here. Wearing your mask with your nose uncovered is like walking around with your dick hanging out. Why even wear pants? The masks are at best a stop-gap measure so wearing them incorrectly utterly defeats the purpose. It is a simple thing to have a care for your fellow human beings and wear your mask over your nose and mouth.
Number 6 above is an argument that I have only recently come across. For some reason, some people have decided that wearing a mask is a way for the government to exert more control over their citizenry. Well, okay, or it could just be a very simple thing to do that might save someone’s life.
When the Chinese invented Covid-19 in a secret lab in order to kill off a large majority of the world’s population, I do not think they anticipated the further benefit of creating an increasing number of dumb people.
Go out and be consistent!