Snopes Daily Debunker: Bill Gates and COVID-19

Bill Gates and COVID-19 Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates is a longtime vaccination proponent, which unsurprisingly has made him the target of anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists, at least a few of whom believe Gates is literally the biblical Antichrist. His efforts to facilitate the production of a COVID-19 vaccine have only exacerbated the wild rumors about him, which now include the claim that his vaccine advocacy is only a pretense for surreptitiously injecting the entire world’s population with microchips for tracking purposes. In today’s featured article, Snopes.com’s Alex Kasprak dismantles the conspiracy theory line by line. Read more

 

Fact Checks Did Ohio Man Who Called COVID-19 a ‘Political Ploy’ Die from the Disease? John W. McDaniel of Ohio passed away at the age of 60 in April 2020. True   Did the News Media Fake Photos of Jacksonville Beaches? Jacksonville-area journalists were accused of lying to the public about photographs of the Jacksonville Beach partial re-opening during the COVID-19 pandemic. False   Is This COVID-19 Mask Efficacy Chart Accurate? The CDC recommends wearing a cloth face mask in public during the COVID-19 pandemic to help slow the spread of the disease. Mostly false   Does This Photo Show an Anti-Semitic Sign at a COVID-19 Lockdown Protest? The protest movement against coronavirus restrictions has highlighted a variety of messages, some of them quite unsavory. True   Are US Millionaires Receiving $1.7M in COVID-19 Stimulus Checks? That would be about 1,400 times the amount a low-income worker would receive from the federal government's COVID-19 economic relief package. Mixture   Did Country Singer Joe Diffie Die from Lung Cancer? The country music star passed away on March 29, 2020. False

 

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In the News Timeline Reset: CDC Confirms Weeks-Earlier California Deaths Santa Clara County officials said the two people died at home in mid-February, about two weeks before the previous earliest-reported death in Washington state on Feb. 29. Read more   Many Small Businesses Say Loans Won’t Get Them to Rehire Some businesses see little point in rehiring all their workers and potentially laying them off again if business remains weak two months from now. Read more   Officials: 7 Virus Cases May Be Related to In-Person Voting Health officials in Wisconsin said they have identified at least seven people who may have contracted the coronavirus from participating in the April 7, 2020 election, the first such cases following in-person voting that was held despite widespread concern about the public health risks. Read more   More Deaths, No Benefit from Malaria Drug in VA Virus Study A malaria drug widely touted by U.S. President Donald Trump for treating the new coronavirus showed no benefit in a large analysis of its use in U.S. veterans hospitals. Read more

 

Staff Pick Is This a Photo of a 6-Year-Old Coal Miner? The widespread presence of laboring children was a common sight in the U.S. at the turn of the 20th century. Read more

 

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