Factcheck: Was COVID-19 manufactured in order to cause human depopulation?

A video published on YouTube discusses a conspiracy theory alleging that the coronavirus was manufactured “on purpose” by a clandestine organisation of which Bill Gates is a member, the ‘Cabal’ / ‘Illuminati’. We have previously written about false claims that Bill Gates was involved in creating the virus. The speaker claims that the virus is meant to “depopulate the planet” and says that a vaccine created by this same group will also “make people sick”, causing further deaths.

As we have previously written, the World Health Organization (WHO) clarifies that while the source of the virus is currently unknown, ‘all available evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2 has a natural animal origin and is not a constructed virus. Many researchers have been able to look at the genomic features of SARS-CoV-2 and have found that evidence does not support that SARS-CoV-2 is a laboratory construct. If it were a constructed virus, its genomic sequence would show a mix of known elements. This is not the case’. As stated in The Lancet, ‘scientists from around the world overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife’.

Sources published by the speaker below the video include a link to prolific conspiracy theorist, David Icke’s, webpage. Comments made by Icke on a ‘London Live’ TV interview, such as reference to a “cult” and the use of “nanotechnology microchips” in a future coronavirus vaccine, have since been declared by Ofcom as ‘views which had the potential to cause significant harm to viewers in London during the pandemic’. The regulating authority was ‘particularly concerned by his comments casting doubt on the motives behind official health advice to protect the public from the virus’ which have no scientific backing.

Another claim made in the video is that the “flu shot” (inoculation) has “several strains of COVID-19”. It is not credible that the coronavirus would be in a flu vaccination, the purpose of which is to protect against strains of influenza. The WHO recommended composition of influenza virus vaccines for use in the 2019-2020 season in both the northern and southern hemispheres makes no mention of any coronavirus.

So let’s piece this all together. There’s a depopulation program. There’s a big group called the ‘Cabal’ that’s running this depopulation program. It’s something that has been a real thing for amounts of years that I probably wouldn’t even be able to name. Those stones are pretty old. Bill Gates is a part of this group. This group’s purpose is to depopulate the planet, obviously. What’s a good way to do that? A virus. How do you do that? You create the virus yourself. After you create the virus you let it out. Now how do you make sure that even more people are wiped out because this virus obviously isn’t going to bring them to their actual goal. You create a vaccine. What does this vaccine do? It makes people sick and eventually people die of different illnesses that they won’t be able to blame on this new vaccine because they’ll die from other things caused by this vaccine. That is the truth.