Do you think COVID-19 is a hoax?

Critical thinking is more than essential to avoid falling for dangerous conspiracy theories about the coronavirus pandemic that currently spread online and in the media. Russell Jones does an excellent job here questioning them.

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435,000 Brits have had COVID-19 (including me). If you think it is all a hoax, ask yourself: why would we lie? What is the benefit to us? And how are we organising this big lie? How are we coordinating with the over 32 million others around the world who have had it, and why?

And if you think it is not us, patients, who are lying, it is the medical profession: why? Doctors don’t get a % of value of the drugs they sell, so there is literally no reason for them to make this up.

Doctors and medical professionals are working incredibly long hours in incredible discomfort, and often dying, for no extra money. Are they doing this to support a conspiracy? If you think they are, as yourself: why? What is in it for them?

And if you think it is Big Pharma who is making it all up, ask yourself: how are they conning all the doctors? Doctors are not idiots. They know bioscience. They include virology experts who conduct independent experiments. How are these people all conned?

And even if Big Pharma is fooling every one of the around 15 million doctors worldwide: why? They aren’t making money from it because there is no cure. If you were going to blackmail the world into needing your miracle drug, wouldn’t you make sure it exists first?

And if you think it is the government who is perpetrating the hoax: why? Governments around the world are massively unpopular because of it, and it is costing the world trillions – and that has to be repaid, which will make governments MORE unpopular. So why make it up?

And if you think this was all perpetrated by China: why? Explain how China has made itself richer, more powerful or more popular by “creating a virus” that reduced its economy by 7% and vastly reduced demand for its exports worldwide.

And finally, whichever hoax theory you subscribe to, ask this: how? How is it possible to coordinate the hundreds of millions of individuals involved, in 200 nations and 50 languages, without any papertrail? And why bother?

For God’s sake, do some critical thinking!🔷

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Russell Jones, Designer, data analyst, blogger.

[This piece was first published as a Twitter thread and turned into the above article on 27 September 2020 with the purpose of reaching a larger audience. It has been minorly edited and corrected, and published with the author’s consent. | The author of the tweets writes in a personal capacity.]

(Cover: Pixabay.)

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