Talk politics.

Bill Gates is to blame for the Covid-19 pandemic. He wants to put microchips in our bodies to monitor every move we make. Such conspiracy theories have gained huge popularity lately, hundreds of thousands of people parroting them around the Internet. What might be the reason for all this? And is there any truth in these claims?

Probably the number one conspiracy theory right now is that Bill Gates knew in advance about the Covid-19 outbreak, or even caused it. You know, he's part of an elitist cabal that wants to reduce Earth's population. Another theory claims he wants to use the pandemic as a pretext to microchip every single human on Earth, pretending that he's giving us a vaccine.

Sure, anyone with a brain would realize there's no evidence for these claims, not even anything remotely resembling evidence. But of course that still doesn't mean they're losing popularity. A NYT joint research with Zignal Labs, a software company, has shown staggering results. Bill Gates and Covid-19 related conspiracy theories have been mentioned over 1.2 million times around the social networks and US media between February and April. That's about 1/3 more than the second most popular conspiracy theory, the 5G technology (and Bill Gates' name is often mentioned there, too).

Sure, but why exactly him? Well, he's become the most notorious public name since the Covid-19 outbreak simply because 1) he's rich and famous, and 2) he's been outspoken about the pandemic. His family charity has donated 250 million dollars for fighting the pandemic. He's also very critical of Trump's administration, specifically its inadequate and late response. This of course has earned him a lot of hate from Trump supporters. A Yahoo news and YouGov research in mid May found that 44% of the Republican supporters in the US believe Gates is planning a mass Covid-19 vaccination plotting to secretly microchip millions of Americans.

But there's something more. In 2015 Bill Gates delivered a speech where he warned that the viruses could be a greater threat to humankind than a possible nuclear war. The footage of that statement has been watched 25+ million times on Youtube. The conspiracy theorists instantly saw proof in those words that Gates knew in advance about the Covid-19 outbreak. However they cannot answer a very simple question: if he knew, why would he reveal his plan well in advance? Hmmm... Makes as much sense as any other conspiracy theory upon closer scrutiny, no?

How about another theory that's so popular around the Interwebz. It claims the Pirbright Institute, based in Surrey, UK, owns the patent for the new Coronavirus. And of course it's funded by Bill Gates' foundation. The theory claims the pandemic was artificially created so that Gates could grow even wealthier by selling the vaccine he already has conveniently invented for him. Except, the patent that Pirbright holds is for a different coronavirus that mostly affects birds. Oh well.

Cases like these show how easily people could be ensnared by fake news, especially at times of crisis. Of course when one is in a crisis situation they'd want to know the reason for their ordeal. The more stressful the situation, the likelier that people would abandon rational thought, and blame it all on specific persons or groups, all evidence (or lack thereof) be damned.

Truth is, during the last decade or so, Bill Gates never ceased warning about the danger of infectious diseases, and how the world was totally unprepared to face a pandemic like this one (or, God forbid, much worse). He also has a significant contribution to the development and dissemination of vaccines around the world. Those vaccines are a crucial weapon in the fight against life-threatening diseases such as measles and Polio.

Of course he's far from being the only person to have warned of the danger of pandemics. He practically reiterates the concerns of many scientists and experts in infectious diseases. The signs that something of the sort could happen have been plenty: just recall the SARS outbreak in 2002, the H1N1 in 2009, the Ebola epidemic in 2014-2016, the Zika epidemic in 2016... Those signs, however, did not bring the necessary preemptive measures from the international community, and today we're reaping the sour fruits of that inaction. And it's not the messenger who's to blame. But go explain this to all those dupes.