God’s punishment for homosexuality. Bill Gates’ invention to aid pharmaceutical companies and to crash China’s economy. Disney’s plan to promote its streaming site Disney+. A way to re-engineer the population. A side effect of advancements in 5G wireless technology. These are all conspiracies that some people have started to believe about this global pandemic.

In an age of fast-paced media and fake news, a myriad of coronavirus conspiracies have run rampant. “You see the space being flooded,” Graham Brookie, the director of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, said to The New York Times.  He added, “The anxiety is viral, and we’re all just feeling that at scale.”

 Being inside all day and anxiety running high has made it easy for rumors about the virus to catch on. 

The most popular conspiracy is that there is no virus and the symptoms are merely side effects of radiation from 5G cell phone towers. 5G has gotten a bad reputation for years — it has been accused of causing autism, brain cancer, infertility, and Alzheimer’s disease, all which lack scientific support. Mark Steele, a prominent anti-5G theorist, wrote on Facebook, “5G kill grid crime continues during lockdown — these criminals must think we are as stupid as the sheep.” 

Over 30 acts of vandalism and arson occurred surrounding 5G towers across Britain throughout March, and 20 occurred over Easter weekend. Others believe that the lockdown that started March 23 across the United Kingdom was a plot to build 5G towers out of sight of the general population.

Some people, such as Steven Andrew, pastor of the USA Christian Church, said the coronavirus is God’s divine punishment for homosexuality, leading Andrew to declare March as Repent of LGBT Sin Month. “Our safety is at stake,” Andrew said in an interview with Christian Newswire. “Since national disobedience of God’s laws brings danger and diseases, such as coronavirus, but obeying God brings covenant protection. … God protects the USA from danger as the country repents for LGBT, false gods, abortion and other sins.” 

However, other dangerous conspiracy theories focus on how to cure coronavirus and have already been fatal to some. President Donald Trump claimed the common malaria treatments chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine were cures for coronavirus, tweeting that these drugs, “have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine.” 

Since then, studies in Brazil on the drug’s effect on coronavirus patients have been halted after patients developed irregular heart rates. A man in Arizona died, and his wife was hospitalized after using chloroquine as a treatment for the virus. However, chloroquine was not the only supposed cure for coronavirus; other false cures touted are cocaine, hand dryers, vitamin C and Miracle Mineral Solution. 

Immunity from the virus has also been speculated, claiming certain groups and area’s cannot catch coronavirus. A Stanford think tank suggested the city of Los Angeles had herd immunity, suspecting an early flu season in the city was an undetected outbreak of coronavirus. Another theory proposed that higher levels of melanin was a protector against the virus. The theory started with maps showing that areas with high concentrations of melanin had fewer coronavirus cases, and fake articles saying black people have stronger antibodies than white people and that melanin absorbs UV rays which kill coronavirus. In reality, the data available suggests COVID-19 is, in fact, infecting and killing black Americans at disproportionately higher rates, according to The New York Times. 

In these stressful times where conspiracies are everywhere it is important to use reliable sources for information regarding coronavirus to avoid falling prey to fake news and crazy conspiracies.