Fabricated Photo of a Document on Scheduled COVID-19 Variants
The Claim
The photo shows a document from 2020 with the names of all COVID-19 variants and the dates for their start.
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Emerging story
From last July until recently, social media accounts have been circulating a photo claiming it was of a 2020 document containing all names of COVID-19 variants and the dates in which they were set to start, including the most recent Omicron variant.
Posts sharing the purported document also claimed that the COVID-19 virus and its variants are nothing but a global conspiracy planned for in advance. The document is allegedly signed by Johns Hopkins University, the World Economic Forum and the World Health Organization.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar investigated the circulated document and found that it was fake. None of the institutions allegedly signing the document have issued such a document. The document does not appear on the websites of Johns Hopkins University, the World Economic Forum or the World Health Organization. Nor did any of these institutions release a statement or issue a press release on their websites endorsing or validating the document.
In addition, the Associated Press reported that the World Economic Forum and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said the document was fabricated and includes wrong information about the virus. They also refuted claims of the COVID-19 virus and its variants as a global ploy by universities, nonprofit organizations and global elites.
The document stated that the COVID-19 Delta variant appeared for the first time in India at the end of 2020, not in June 2021 as claimed in the document. Moreover, the Omicron variant did not appear in May of this year but rather in November.
The World Health Organization had announced on May 31, 2021, that it had convened a group of experts and partners from all over the world to name variants of the COVID-19, pointing out that these labels will not replace scientific terms. Instead, they are assigned because they are “simple, easy to say and remember.” According to WHO, five mutant names have been identified. The new ones are “Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and the last of them is Omicron. They are all taken from the Greek alphabet.
Translated by Ahmed N. A. Almassri
