vox--2020-04-24--Why you’re unlikely to get the coronavirus from runners or cyclists

Share All sharing options for : Why you ’ re unlikely to get the coronavirus from runners or cyclists Under social distancing , we ’ re all doing our best to stay sane , and one of the best ways to maintain sanity is to go out for some nice fresh air .
But venturing outside can be stressful if you ’ re worried that the very air is full of virus particles just waiting to infect you .
So , how worried should you be that any time you go outside , you ’ ll contract coronavirus from a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who happens to exhale as they pass by ?
The answer is , you probably don ’ t need to freak out about it .
As long as you ’ re maintaining at least 6 feet of distance from other people and you ’ re not in a high-risk group , you ’ re engaged in a very low-risk activity , particularly if you and others are wearing masks .
Earlier this month , Belgian-Dutch engineers publicized some findings that went viral online and gave people the opposite impression .
The engineers used @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the spread of droplets we generate as we walk , run , or bike .
Since the particles hit a trailing athlete who was farther than 6 feet away , the engineers concluded we need to maintain more distance than that to avoid the risk of contracting Covid-19 .
They recommended staying 16 feet behind someone who ’ s walking , 33 feet behind someone who ’ s running or biking slowly , and 65 feet behind someone who ’ s biking hard .
Those sorts of distances are almost impossible to maintain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the findings made the rounds online , lots of people panicked .
But this research — despite being branded as a “ study ” in a much-shared Medium post aiming to summarize it — contained no input from epidemiologists or virologists and was not peer-reviewed .
Its logic is deeply flawed .
“ I think we should be very careful with making assumptions about transmission based on that ‘ study , ’ since it didn ’ t account for any variables related to transmissibility , ” said Angela Rasmussen , a virologist at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s important to understand that infections are started with a minimum infectious dose of virus.
” In other words , the “ study ” failed to consider two key questions : How easy is it for particles traveling in the air outdoors to infect you ?
And how many particles containing infectious virus would you have to inhale to become infected ?
The engineers simply concluded that any exposure was too much .
But that ’ s not the case ; the truth is more reassuring .
Let ’ s break down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
How easy is it for particles traveling in the air outdoors to infect you ?
To start with , we should get clear on something that has proven confusing to lots of people : Is the coronavirus “ airborne ” ?
The confusion stems from the fact that there ’ s an everyday meaning of the word “ airborne ” — carried in the air — and a technical scientific meaning , which is based on the size of the virus particles and how long the virus can linger in the air @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like to refer to bigger particles that are heavy and thus fall down fast as “ droplets , ” and tiny particles that evaporate faster than they can fall as “ aerosols.
” When a virus is transmissible as aerosols , they say it ’ s “ airborne.
” We know for sure that the coronavirus moves as droplets .
But what about aerosols ?
“ There ’ s no debate at all as to whether or not aerosols are generated ( they are [ at least in hospitals where medically invasive procedures @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not they contain virus ( they do [ at least at first ] ) , and whether or not a particularly violent sneeze can propel them across a room ( it can ) , ” said Jennifer Kasten , a pathologist with training in infectious disease epidemiology and global health .
Research by MIT ’ s Lydia Bourouiba has shown that coughs and sneezes can release turbulent clouds of particles in droplet and aerosol form alike .
The particles from a cough can travel as far as 16 feet and particles from a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ feet .
That , and a handful of other studies , have left some people wondering if maybe we do need to stay much farther apart from one another than the recommended 6 feet .
But if we focus solely on the aerodynamics of particle dispersion , we obscure more crucial unanswered questions : How hardy is the virus when it ’ s in aerosol form ?
How long can it linger in the air before its protective coat of moisture dries up and it falls apart , ceasing to be infectious ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , like the one originating in a choir practice in Washington state , that seem to indicate that asymptomatic people can generate aerosols that make other people sick — at least when they ’ re closely packed together in an enclosed space , for a few hours , singing , which generates higher pressures than does breathing or speech .
Fortunately , increasing your distance , decreasing the duration of your exposure , and improving the ventilation of the air around you can all lower your risk .
And being outdoors generally helps @ @ @ @ @ @ @ risks of virus transmissibility in the air outdoors is likely quite low in those contexts , although this risk hasn ’ t been definitively measured , ” Rasmussen said .
“ Outside , things like sunlight , wind , rain , ambient temperature , and humidity can affect virus infectivity and transmissibility , so while we can ’ t say there ’ s zero risk , it ’ s likely low unless you are engaging in activities as part of a large crowd ( such as a protest ) .
Solitary outdoor exercise @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both noted that a perfect sequence of events has to happen for a virus to jump from an infected passerby outdoors to you .
The particles — enough of them to be able to kickstart an infection — have to spray out of the passerby with enough force to make their way over to you .
The virus inside the particles has to survive while sunlight , humidity , wind , and other forces work to decay and disperse them .
The particles have to land right in your upper throat or respiratory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which you then use to touch your eyes , nose , or mouth — and they have to get past all the barriers to infection in the respiratory system , like nose hairs and mucus .
Then they have to dock up with your cells ’ ACE-2 receptors and use them to enter the cells .
This is a pretty arduous sequence to execute properly , and it ’ s even more difficult for the virus if everyone involved — say , both you and the runner in front of you — is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ why , if you ’ re standing outdoors several feet away from an infected person , the virus might have a hard time making its way over to you at a high enough dose to actually infect you .
How many particles do you have to inhale to launch an infection ?
One thing we ’ d all love to know about Covid-19 is what constitutes the infectious dose — that is , how many live virus particles you need to inhale at once before they kickstart an infection .
Unfortunately , scientists @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yet .
“ As animal model data continues to come out , we ’ ll have a much better idea about estimated ranges of infectious dose , ” Rasmussen said .
In the meantime , some experts are estimating the infectious dose for Covid-19 from previous coronaviruses that have infected humans , like Middle East Respiratory Syndrome ( MERS ) .
To develop a MERS infection , the number of virus particles you need to inhale is somewhere in the thousands , perhaps as high as 10,000 .
Willem van Schaik , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Birmingham , estimates that to develop Covid-19 , that number is lower , perhaps in the high hundreds or low thousands .
That ’ s just an educated guess , but it ’ s reasonable to assume that it takes fewer particles to launch an infection in the case of Covid-19 than MERS because Covid-19 is much more transmissible .
Each person with Covid-19 infects two or three others on average , while for MERS that number is less than one .
Although we don ’ t know exactly how many particles it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the point to bear in mind here is that you ’ re not going to contract Covid-19 if a single particle falls on you .
One of the problems with the Belgian-Dutch exercise “ study ” is that its recommendations seem to be based on the idea that any exposure is too much .
Obviously , you don ’ t want to walk through someone ’ s fresh sneeze or cough cloud , and if this accidentally happens you should go home , change , and shower .
But if you ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is generating with their exhalations , it may help to know that a recent study managed to quantify how many virus particles were detectable after patients who had Covid-19 and who were not wearing masks coughed five times into a petri dish at a distance of roughly 8 inches .
The scientists detected 363 virus particles on average per 1 mL of petri dish .
That seems like a lot , but again , that was at a distance of 8 inches .
If you ’ re 6 feet away ( 72 inches @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before you can inhale it — particularly if you ’ re outdoors , where factors like increased distance , decreased duration of exposure , and improved air ventilation are all working in your favor .
An understanding of infectious dose , combined with an understanding of transmissibility as laid out above , should also help calm excessive levels of worry about picking up the virus from objects like mail or groceries .
Remember that to kickstart an illness , you have to have enough virus particles to get an infection going , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , infectious virus , not just dead RNA ( genetic material that won ’ t harm you ) .
The latter will simply fall apart after enough time on inert objects — up to 24 hours on cardboard and up to three days on plastic and stainless steel .
“ Viral RNA does not imply the presence of infectious virus , ” Kasten explained .
“ The virus , without host cells and a bit of moisture to keep it temporarily going , can fall apart , leaving bits of its RNA lying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
A researcher can come along with PCR [ polymerase chain reaction , a common method in molecular biology ] and detect the RNA , but that doesn ’ t necessarily mean they detected infectious virus.
” So , when you see a headline that seems frightening — for example , one saying that researchers found coronavirus on a cruise ship 17 days after passengers disembarked — just remember that doesn ’ t necessarily mean it was live , infectious virus .
“ The good news is that we do know that while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on different surfaces and in different environments , it does lose infectivity over time , ” Rasmussen said .
“ So if you inhale a large number of total [ virus particles ] but only a small number of them are infectious , you are at much lower risk of actually getting infected.
” None of this is to say you should be cavalier when you venture into the outside world .
Washing your hands , avoiding touching your face , being diligent about physical distancing , wearing masks in public , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ likely reduce transmission risk , and we should keep doing them , Rasmussen said .
But she also said she feels fine about taking a walk with her husband outdoors .
Psychologically , different people have different levels of tolerance for risk .
For some people , any risk that can be minimized , should be , no matter how small .
For others , the recommended 6-foot distance , with masks , and the known decay of both the amount and the infectiousness of the virus — that ’ s good enough @ @ @ @ @ @ @ should know , though , that the 6-footers are not being foolhardy or endangering others unnecessarily , ” Kasten said .
Asked if she could offer a way to assess the risk of various activities in terms we can easily wrap our minds around , Kasten said to consider the difference in the risk between taking a stroll through the park on an even path versus climbing up a steep cliff face .
“ Sure , you could slip , fall , strike your head , and die on that path in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ successfully to the top of El Capitan .
But most of us would accept the risk of the stroll and not accept [ the risk of ] dangling from the cliff , ” she said .
“ Breathing in someone ’ s sneeze cloud , close by , without a mask — that ’ s the cliff face .
Jogging several feet away , or getting the mail — that ’ s the park.
” Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Vox today .

Share All sharing options for: Why you’re unlikely to get the coronavirus from runners or cyclists
Under social distancing, we’re all doing our best to stay sane, and one of the best ways to maintain sanity is to go out for some nice fresh air. But venturing outside can be stressful if you’re worried that the very air is full of virus particles just waiting to infect you.
So, how worried should you be that any time you go outside, you’ll contract coronavirus from a fellow pedestrian, runner, or cyclist who happens to exhale as they pass by?
The answer is, you probably don’t need to freak out about it. As long as you’re maintaining at least 6 feet of distance from other people and you’re not in a high-risk group, you’re engaged in a very low-risk activity, particularly if you and others are wearing masks.
In April, Belgian and Dutch engineers publicized some findings that went viral online and gave people the opposite impression. The engineers used a spray nozzle particle generator to simulate the spread of droplets we generate as we walk, run, or bike. Since the particles hit a trailing athlete who was farther than 6 feet away, the engineers concluded we need to maintain more distance than that to avoid the risk of contracting Covid-19.
They recommended staying 16 feet behind someone who’s walking, 33 feet behind someone who’s running or biking slowly, and 65 feet behind someone who’s biking hard. Those sorts of distances are almost impossible to maintain in big cities. So, as the findings made the rounds online, lots of people panicked.
But this research — despite being branded as a “study” in a much-shared Medium post aiming to summarize it — contained no input from epidemiologists or virologists and was not peer-reviewed. Its logic is deeply flawed.
“I think we should be very careful with making assumptions about transmission based on that ‘study,’ since it didn’t account for any variables related to transmissibility,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University, adding, “It’s important to understand that infections are started with a minimum infectious dose of virus.”
In other words, the “study” failed to consider two key questions: How easy is it for particles traveling in the air outdoors to infect you? And how many particles containing infectious virus would you have to inhale to become infected?
The engineers simply concluded that any exposure was too much. But that’s not the case; the truth is more reassuring. Let’s break down each of the two questions in turn.
How easy is it for particles traveling in the air outdoors to infect you?
To start with, we should get clear on something that has proven confusing to lots of people: Is the coronavirus “airborne”?
The confusion stems from the fact that there’s an everyday meaning of the word “airborne” — carried in the air — and a technical scientific meaning, which is based on the size of the virus particles and how long the virus can linger in the air before losing its infectivity.
Public health experts like to refer to bigger particles that are heavy and thus fall fast as “droplets,” and tiny particles that evaporate faster than they can fall as “aerosols.” When a virus is transmissible as aerosols, they say it’s “airborne.”
We know for sure that the coronavirus moves as droplets. But what about aerosols?
“There’s no debate at all as to whether or not aerosols are generated (they are [at least in hospitals where medically invasive procedures are performed]), whether or not they contain virus (they do [at least at first]), and whether or not a particularly violent sneeze can propel them across a room (it can),” said Jennifer Kasten, a pathologist with training in infectious disease epidemiology and global health.
Research by MIT’s Lydia Bourouiba has shown that coughs and sneezes can release turbulent clouds of particles in droplet and aerosol form alike. The particles from a cough can travel as far as 16 feet and particles from a sneeze can travel as far as 26 feet.
That, and a handful of other studies, have left some people wondering if maybe we do need to stay much farther apart from one another than the recommended 6 feet.
But if we focus solely on the aerodynamics of particle dispersion, we obscure more crucial unanswered questions: How hardy is the virus when it’s in aerosol form? How long can it linger in the air before its protective coat of moisture dries up and it falls apart, ceasing to be infectious?
We’ve seen Covid-19 case clusters, like the one originating in a choir practice in Washington state, that seem to indicate that asymptomatic people can generate aerosols that make other people sick — at least when they’re closely packed together in an enclosed space, for a few hours, singing, which generates higher pressures than does breathing or speech.
Fortunately, increasing your distance, decreasing the duration of your exposure, and improving the ventilation of the air around you can all lower your risk. And being outdoors generally helps you do all three.
“The risks of virus transmissibility in the air outdoors is likely quite low in those contexts, although this risk hasn’t been definitively measured,” Rasmussen said. “Outside, things like sunlight, wind, rain, ambient temperature, and humidity can affect virus infectivity and transmissibility, so while we can’t say there’s zero risk, it’s likely low unless you are engaging in activities as part of a large crowd (such as a protest). Solitary outdoor exercise is likely low-risk.”
Rasmussen and Kasten both noted that a perfect sequence of events has to happen for a virus to jump from an infected passerby outdoors to you. The particles — enough of them to be able to kickstart an infection — have to spray out of the passerby with enough force to make their way over to you. The virus inside the particles has to survive while sunlight, humidity, wind, and other forces work to decay and disperse them. The particles have to land right in your upper throat or respiratory tract — or on your hands, which you then use to touch your eyes, nose, or mouth — and they have to get past all the barriers to infection in the respiratory system, like nose hairs and mucus. Then they have to dock up with your cells’ ACE-2 receptors and use them to enter the cells.
This is a pretty arduous sequence to execute properly, and it’s even more difficult for the virus if everyone involved — say, both you and the runner in front of you — is wearing a mask. You can see why, if you’re standing outdoors several feet away from an infected person, the virus might have a hard time making its way over to you at a high enough dose to actually infect you.
How many particles do you have to inhale to launch an infection?
One thing we’d all love to know about Covid-19 is what constitutes the infectious dose — that is, how many live virus particles you need to inhale at once before they kickstart an infection. Unfortunately, scientists just don’t have the answer yet.
“As animal model data continues to come out, we’ll have a much better idea about estimated ranges of infectious dose,” Rasmussen said.
In the meantime, some experts are estimating the infectious dose for Covid-19 from previous coronaviruses that have infected humans, like Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).
To develop a MERS infection, the number of virus particles you need to inhale is somewhere in the thousands, perhaps as high as 10,000. Willem van Schaik, a professor of microbiology at the University of Birmingham, estimates that to develop Covid-19, that number is lower, perhaps in the high hundreds or low thousands.
That’s just an educated guess, but it’s reasonable to assume it takes fewer particles to launch an infection in the case of Covid-19 than MERS, because Covid-19 is much more transmissible. Each person with Covid-19 infects two or three others on average, while for MERS that number is less than one.
Although we don’t know exactly how many particles it takes — 900? 1,500? — the point to bear in mind here is that you’re not going to contract Covid-19 if a single particle falls on you. One of the problems with the Belgian-Dutch exercise “study” is that its recommendations seem to be based on the idea that any exposure is too much.
Obviously, you don’t want to walk through someone’s fresh sneeze or cough cloud, and if this accidentally happens you should go home, change, and shower. But if you’re worrying about how many particles a passerby is generating with their exhalations, it may help to know that a study managed to quantify how many virus particles were detectable after patients who had Covid-19 and who were not wearing masks coughed five times into a petri dish at a distance of roughly 8 inches.
The scientists detected 363 virus particles on average per 1 ml of petri dish. That seems like a lot, but again, that was at a distance of 8 inches. If you’re 6 feet away (72 inches), much of that will disperse before you can inhale it — particularly if you’re outdoors, where factors like increased distance, decreased duration of exposure, and improved air ventilation are all working in your favor.
It may also help to know about some studies suggesting that most Covid-19 transmission happens indoors, not outdoors. In China, a study of 318 outbreaks found that transmission occurred outdoors in only one of them. In Japan, a study found that “the odds that a primary case transmitted Covid-19 in a closed environment was 18.7 times greater compared to an open-air environment.” Note, however, that both of these are preprint papers (not yet peer reviewed).
An understanding of infectious dose, combined with an understanding of transmissibility as laid out above, should also help calm excessive levels of worry about picking up the virus from objects like mail or groceries. Remember that to kickstart an illness, you have to have enough virus particles to get an infection going, and it’s got to be live, infectious virus, not just dead RNA (genetic material that won’t harm you). The latter will simply fall apart after enough time on inert objects — up to 24 hours on cardboard and up to three days on plastic and stainless steel.
“Viral RNA does not imply the presence of infectious virus,” Kasten explained. “The virus, without host cells and a bit of moisture to keep it temporarily going, can fall apart, leaving bits of its RNA lying around like bleached bones in the sun. A researcher can come along with PCR [polymerase chain reaction, a common method in molecular biology] and detect the RNA, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they detected infectious virus.”
So, when you see a headline that seems frightening — for example, one saying that researchers found coronavirus on a cruise ship 17 days after passengers disembarked — just remember that doesn’t necessarily mean it was live, infectious virus.
“The good news is that we do know that while the virus can persist in the environment on different surfaces and in different environments, it does lose infectivity over time,” Rasmussen said. “So if you inhale a large number of total [virus particles] but only a small number of them are infectious, you are at much lower risk of actually getting infected.”
None of this is to say you should be cavalier when you venture into the outside world. Washing your hands, avoiding touching your face, being diligent about physical distancing, wearing masks in public, and disinfecting communal surfaces — all these things likely reduce transmission risk, and we should keep doing them, Rasmussen said. But she also said she feels fine about taking a walk with her husband outdoors.
Psychologically, different people have different levels of tolerance for risk. For some people, any risk that can be minimized, should be, no matter how small. For others, the recommended 6-foot distance, with masks, and the known decay of both the amount and the infectiousness of the virus — that’s good enough.
“The people who are 26-footers should know, though, that the 6-footers are not being foolhardy or endangering others unnecessarily,” Kasten said.
Asked if she could offer a way to assess the risk of various activities in terms we can easily wrap our minds around, Kasten said to consider the difference in the risk between taking a stroll through the park on an even path versus climbing up a steep cliff face.
“Sure, you could slip, fall, strike your head, and die on that path in the park. Likewise, you could free-solo successfully to the top of El Capitan. But most of us would accept the risk of the stroll and not accept [the risk of] dangling from the cliff,” she said. “Breathing in someone’s sneeze cloud, close by, without a mask — that’s the cliff face. Jogging several feet away, or getting the mail — that’s the park.”


vox--2020-04-24--Georgia’s unusual unemployment benefits rule lets some workers fall through the cracks

If you ’ re a furloughed employee collecting unemployment , you have to submit a weekly claim for your benefits .
Except in Georgia .
Georgia requires employers — not the employees themselves — to file for unemployment every week for workers who have been furloughed or had their hours partially reduced , according to a recent emergency rule adopted by the Georgia Department of Labor .
While Georgia ’ s new rule applies to temporarily laid-off employees , rather than permanently laid-off ones , it has still impacted the vast majority of people in the state filing for unemployment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ change was intended to streamline the process and ease the burden on unemployed people , in this crisis moment where more than 26 million Americans have lost their jobs in the past five weeks .
In practice , some Georgians say it ’ s left them in limbo if their employer doesn ’ t file on their behalf every week .
Many employers run their payroll at most every two weeks .
If the employer misses recertifying them every week , they stand to lose money as they stare down looming bills .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Georgia who was recently furloughed , is one of those people .
According to Woolf , his employer has missed some weeks , which is making his family ’ s financial situation increasingly dire .
“ Every week that they don ’ t file , we can ’ t receive any money , ” Woolf told Vox in a recent interview .
“ I ’ m missing all these payments , and my employer is saying they ’ re only going to file every two weeks.
” May 1 has become an anxiety-filled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ car payment , and other bills — and he ’ s worried about subsequent months as well .
“ My wife ’ s working essentially just enough so that my daughter and I can get on her insurance , ” he said .
But if his benefits don ’ t come in on time , the family ’ s financial worries won ’ t get any easier .
Employer-filed claims account for about 75 percent of the 1.1 million claims the state has processed since March 16 , Georgia Department of Labor spokesperson @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mandated there be an employer-filed claim on behalf of that employee , ” Cartwright said .
“ It ’ s a much quicker , much more efficient automated system.
” Rather than the month it takes for an individual claim to be certified , claims from employers can be processed in about a week , she said .
Georgia ’ s change to its UI system speaks to the challenges many states are facing .
Many state UI systems were underfunded and arcane to begin with and are struggling to deal with the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gotten — now up to 26 million nationwide over the past five weeks .
With fewer than 1,000 employees at the Georgia Labor Department to handle these claims , Cartwright said the rule change was meant to help expedite the process .
It ’ s also created confusion — if employers don ’ t know they ’ re supposed to file for employees , or if the employer is based in another state where the rules are different , furloughed employees could wind up missing out .
And some employees like Woolf are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their employers to file on time as the bills pile up .
In some cases , workers are being told by their employers to contact Labor themselves , even though they have limited access to their own claims .
“ I ’ d much rather have the burden be on myself so I could just go in every week , ” Woolf told Vox .
Employers filing weekly for unemployment is a relatively untested idea Georgia is one of a small number of states that are putting more onus on employers to get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they ’ re laid off .
South Carolina is also doing this in specific circumstances , like when an employer is paying employees extra benefits in addition to unemployment .
But Georgia is the only state to require employers to file weekly for employees who are furloughed or had partially reduced hours .
More communication between employers and state unemployment offices in the event of mass layoffs can be a good thing , said Michele Evermore , an unemployment expert and senior policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project .
Rather than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the state unemployment office , like work history and the reason they were laid off , the employer can do it for all their employees in one fell swoop .
As Cartwright mentioned , this helps speed up the process significantly .
“ It ’ s worked pretty well there during mass layoffs , but there ’ s a difference between telling the employer [ to give ] the information to the agency and having filing be the employers ’ responsibility , ” Evermore said .
She said employers being responsible for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be problematic .
“ The way I would prefer it to happen is employers notify the agency about who they laid off [ and ] how much they were paid , ” she said .
“ But if the employers aren ’ t filing , that ’ s a real problem ; the state agency should hear about that.
” Other things can hold up a claim , including if the employer filled out the employee ’ s information incorrectly , or if an employee went ahead and filed their own claim , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do it for them .
Some companies are used to doing their payroll every other week , twice a month , or monthly , and they don ’ t realize they need to recertify their employees ’ unemployment claims every week .
“ With employer claims , some employers do their payroll twice a month , some do it weekly , some do it every other week , and in Georgia some are allowed to pay once a month , ” said Amie Willis , an Atlanta-based attorney at Ogletree Deakins who specializes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re reducing [ hours for ] full-time employees or part-time employees , and they ’ re just working as needed , they have to have specific information at the end of each week in order to file for that past week .
But if they don ’ t have access to that payroll information , that would prevent them from filing a claim immediately.
” Cartwright said the Georgia Department of Labor informed employers of the protocol to send laid-off and furloughed employee information to state officials , and has emailed out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ We sent out another one reminding them you need to make sure you ’ re doing this , ” she told Vox .
“ We ’ re trying to take care of that , but it ’ s a better system for us , it ’ s a better system for employees.
” Confusion and missing payments for some workers When Kayla , a part-time paraprofessional at a charter school in Georgia , worked her last day on March 13 , she first held off on filing for unemployment because she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be going back to work .
But getting information from her employer proved to be difficult .
“ I heard nothing from our corporate office about unemployment other than they would keep us updated , ” she said .
About three weeks later , still having heard nothing , she filed for unemployment herself on April 2 , and heard back a day later that she was approved .
But the day after the Labor Department approved her claim , she got a notification from her employer that they had filed for employment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ specifying whom .
When Kayla ’ s coworker got her first UI payment on April 9 , Kayla had still gotten nothing .
That ’ s when she called the Georgia Commissioner of Labor ’ s Office .
“ I ’ d much rather have the burden be on myself so I could just go in every week ” “ When a representative from his office called , she looked at my account and said that she released payment , ” Kayla said .
“ The confusion came when my employer filed on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ receive my benefits until two weeks after.
” She got her first benefit on April 15 , about a month after she was laid off , and said the state office was able to help her navigate next steps about claiming for subsequent weeks .
Woolf , the athletic trainer , also dealt with confusion about whether he or his employer was supposed to file after he first was furloughed .
Woolf ’ s company initially told him and a group of his coworkers they should file for unemployment , which they did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ representative from Labor that the employer was supposed to file for them .
He and his coworkers have had different experiences : Some people have gotten their payments but others are still waiting to receive anything .
He falls somewhere in the middle , having gotten part of what he ’ s owed for benefits but not the full allotment .
“ Everyone ’ s had varying degrees of failure , ” Woolf told me .
“ There was really no understanding as to why this person has gotten this , this person @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contacting Georgia Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler over Twitter and found him to be responsive ( Butler has spent a lot of time fielding individual requests from laid-off people on Twitter lately ) .
Butler connected Woolf with an employee in his office named Kimberly who was able to call him directly .
“ Everyone I know has gotten a call from Kimberly , ” Woolf said .
When he spoke to her , Woolf said , she informed him his employer hadn ’ t filed anything for him since March 28 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been getting checks .
Woolf tried to contact his employer , which has been difficult as well .
Many seem confused about how to navigate the system , Woolf said .
“ The big thing I hear from my friends and family is HR departments are completely unwilling to reach out and answer questions , and don ’ t have a basic level of [ understanding ] , ” he said .
Right now , Woolf says he counts himself as one of the lucky ones — he ’ s still able to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ insurance .
He estimates his family has enough in savings to get through May , but he doesn ’ t know what the future holds after .
If his delayed back payments don ’ t come through by June , Woolf says it would be a “ scary situation.
” As in many states , Georgia ’ s unemployment system is overwhelmed Like many other states , Georgia ’ s state unemployment system was not prepared for the sheer volume of UI applications it received in a month .
“ We have never @ @ @ @ @ @ @ obviously , ” Cartwright , the DOL spokesperson , told Vox .
Before the coronavirus hit , the department processed 5,000 claims per week on average .
Last week , it processed 300,000 claims .
“ During the 2008-2009 recession , we did a million claims in 2009 , ” Cartwright said .
Now , “ we did a million claims in a month.
” Georgia ’ s Labor Department has fewer than 1,000 employees to process the 1.1 million claims it ’ s gotten in the past month .
That ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ department had in 2009 , according to Cartwright .
And Georgia is not alone in this .
The staggering fallout of an economic crisis on a par with the Great Depression is running into many state programs that were underfunded and out of date to begin with .
“ The key aspects of UI were weak going into this , ” Andy Stettner , a senior fellow at the Century Foundation , told Vox recently .
“ The IT infrastructure was weak ; most states hadn ’ t gotten off these ancient mainframes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ never done anything with this type of volume.
” That was part of the reason the state issued the emergency rule to put the burden of filing on many employers — it was an attempt to speed things up .
But it has also created confusion for some in desperate need of these benefits .
Woolf , for one , is grateful for the responses he ’ s gotten from the state Department of Labor , and he understands they ’ re up against a monumental task .
“ It seems like they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to help , but they ’ re so far behind and the system is so antiquated , ” he said .
“ Them going person by person in the system .
...
I don ’ t see how they ’ re ever really going to catch up.
” Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

If you’re a furloughed employee collecting unemployment, you have to submit a weekly claim for your benefits. Except in Georgia.
Georgia requires employers — not the employees themselves — to file for unemployment every week for workers who have been furloughed or had their hours partially reduced, according to a recent emergency rule adopted by the Georgia Department of Labor.
While Georgia’s new rule applies to temporarily laid-off employees, rather than permanently laid-off ones, it has still impacted the vast majority of people in the state filing for unemployment, about 75 percent. The rule change was intended to streamline the process and ease the burden on unemployed people, in this crisis moment where more than 26 million Americans have lost their jobs in the past five weeks.
In practice, some Georgians say it’s left them in limbo if their employer doesn’t file on their behalf every week. Many employers run their payroll at most every two weeks. If the employer misses recertifying them every week, they stand to lose money as they stare down looming bills.
John Woolf, an athletic trainer from Georgia who was recently furloughed, is one of those people. According to Woolf, his employer has missed some weeks, which is making his family’s financial situation increasingly dire.
“Every week that they don’t file, we can’t receive any money,” Woolf told Vox in a recent interview. “I’m missing all these payments, and my employer is saying they’re only going to file every two weeks.”
May 1 has become an anxiety-filled deadline for Woolf’s rent, car payment, and other bills — and he’s worried about subsequent months as well.
“My wife’s working essentially just enough so that my daughter and I can get on her insurance,” he said. But if his benefits don’t come in on time, the family’s financial worries won’t get any easier.
Employer-filed claims account for about 75 percent of the 1.1 million claims the state has processed since March 16, Georgia Department of Labor spokesperson Kersha Cartwright told Vox.
“We mandated there be an employer-filed claim on behalf of that employee,” Cartwright said. “It’s a much quicker, much more efficient automated system.” Rather than the month it takes for an individual claim to be certified, claims from employers can be processed in about a week, she said.
Georgia’s change to its UI system speaks to the challenges many states are facing. Many state UI systems were underfunded and arcane to begin with and are struggling to deal with the crushing load of applications they’ve gotten — now up to 26 million nationwide over the past five weeks. With fewer than 1,000 employees at the Georgia Labor Department to handle these claims, Cartwright said the rule change was meant to help expedite the process.
It’s also created confusion — if employers don’t know they’re supposed to file for employees, or if the employer is based in another state where the rules are different, furloughed employees could wind up missing out. And some employees like Woolf are now stuck, desperately trying to get their employers to file on time as the bills pile up. In some cases, workers are being told by their employers to contact Labor themselves, even though they have limited access to their own claims.
“I’d much rather have the burden be on myself so I could just go in every week,” Woolf told Vox.
Employers filing weekly for unemployment is a relatively untested idea
Georgia is one of a small number of states that are putting more onus on employers to get their employees into state unemployment systems when they’re laid off.
South Carolina is also doing this in specific circumstances, like when an employer is paying employees extra benefits in addition to unemployment. But Georgia is the only state to require employers to file weekly for employees who are furloughed or had partially reduced hours.
More communication between employers and state unemployment offices in the event of mass layoffs can be a good thing, said Michele Evermore, an unemployment expert and senior policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project. Rather than employees having to provide all their information to the state unemployment office, like work history and the reason they were laid off, the employer can do it for all their employees in one fell swoop. As Cartwright mentioned, this helps speed up the process significantly.
“It’s worked pretty well there during mass layoffs, but there’s a difference between telling the employer [to give] the information to the agency and having filing be the employers’ responsibility,” Evermore said. She said employers being responsible for recertifying for their employees every week could be problematic.
“The way I would prefer it to happen is employers notify the agency about who they laid off [and] how much they were paid,” she said. “But if the employers aren’t filing, that’s a real problem; the state agency should hear about that.”
Other things can hold up a claim, including if the employer filled out the employee’s information incorrectly, or if an employee went ahead and filed their own claim, not realizing their employer is supposed to do it for them.
Some companies are used to doing their payroll every other week, twice a month, or monthly, and they don’t realize they need to recertify their employees’ unemployment claims every week.
“With employer claims, some employers do their payroll twice a month, some do it weekly, some do it every other week, and in Georgia some are allowed to pay once a month,” said Amie Willis, an Atlanta-based attorney at Ogletree Deakins who specializes in employment law. “If they’re reducing [hours for] full-time employees or part-time employees, and they’re just working as needed, they have to have specific information at the end of each week in order to file for that past week. But if they don’t have access to that payroll information, that would prevent them from filing a claim immediately.”
Cartwright said the Georgia Department of Labor informed employers of the protocol to send laid-off and furloughed employee information to state officials, and has emailed out reminders for them to file weekly since.
“We sent out another one reminding them you need to make sure you’re doing this,” she told Vox. “We’re trying to take care of that, but it’s a better system for us, it’s a better system for employees.”
Confusion and missing payments for some workers
When Kayla, a part-time paraprofessional at a charter school in Georgia, worked her last day on March 13, she first held off on filing for unemployment because she wasn’t sure if she would be going back to work. But getting information from her employer proved to be difficult.
“I heard nothing from our corporate office about unemployment other than they would keep us updated,” she said.
About three weeks later, still having heard nothing, she filed for unemployment herself on April 2, and heard back a day later that she was approved. But the day after the Labor Department approved her claim, she got a notification from her employer that they had filed for employment on their employees’ behalf — without specifying whom.
When Kayla’s coworker got her first UI payment on April 9, Kayla had still gotten nothing. That’s when she called the Georgia Commissioner of Labor’s Office.
“I’d much rather have the burden be on myself so I could just go in every week”
“When a representative from his office called, she looked at my account and said that she released payment,” Kayla said. “The confusion came when my employer filed on my behalf and I didn’t receive my benefits until two weeks after.” She got her first benefit on April 15, about a month after she was laid off, and said the state office was able to help her navigate next steps about claiming for subsequent weeks.
Woolf, the athletic trainer, also dealt with confusion about whether he or his employer was supposed to file after he first was furloughed. Woolf’s company initially told him and a group of his coworkers they should file for unemployment, which they did — only to be told by a representative from Labor that the employer was supposed to file for them.
He and his coworkers have had different experiences: Some people have gotten their payments but others are still waiting to receive anything. He falls somewhere in the middle, having gotten part of what he’s owed for benefits but not the full allotment.
“Everyone’s had varying degrees of failure,” Woolf told me. “There was really no understanding as to why this person has gotten this, this person has gotten that.”
Woolf resorted to contacting Georgia Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler over Twitter and found him to be responsive (Butler has spent a lot of time fielding individual requests from laid-off people on Twitter lately). Butler connected Woolf with an employee in his office named Kimberly who was able to call him directly.
“Everyone I know has gotten a call from Kimberly,” Woolf said. When he spoke to her, Woolf said, she informed him his employer hadn’t filed anything for him since March 28, which explained why he hadn’t been getting checks. Woolf tried to contact his employer, which has been difficult as well. Many seem confused about how to navigate the system, Woolf said.
“The big thing I hear from my friends and family is HR departments are completely unwilling to reach out and answer questions, and don’t have a basic level of [understanding],” he said.
Right now, Woolf says he counts himself as one of the lucky ones — he’s still able to be on his wife’s health insurance. He estimates his family has enough in savings to get through May, but he doesn’t know what the future holds after.
If his delayed back payments don’t come through by June, Woolf says it would be a “scary situation.”
As in many states, Georgia’s unemployment system is overwhelmed
Like many other states, Georgia’s state unemployment system was not prepared for the sheer volume of UI applications it received in a month.
“We have never seen this kind of volume before, obviously,” Cartwright, the DOL spokesperson, told Vox. Before the coronavirus hit, the department processed 5,000 claims per week on average. Last week, it processed 300,000 claims.
“During the 2008-2009 recession, we did a million claims in 2009,” Cartwright said. Now, “we did a million claims in a month.”
Georgia’s Labor Department has fewer than 1,000 employees to process the 1.1 million claims it’s gotten in the past month. That’s less than half the staffing capacity the department had in 2009, according to Cartwright. And Georgia is not alone in this. The staggering fallout of an economic crisis on a par with the Great Depression is running into many state programs that were underfunded and out of date to begin with.
“The key aspects of UI were weak going into this,” Andy Stettner, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, told Vox recently. “The IT infrastructure was weak; most states hadn’t gotten off these ancient mainframes. The concern is they’ve never done anything with this type of volume.”
That was part of the reason the state issued the emergency rule to put the burden of filing on many employers — it was an attempt to speed things up. But it has also created confusion for some in desperate need of these benefits.
Woolf, for one, is grateful for the responses he’s gotten from the state Department of Labor, and he understands they’re up against a monumental task.
“It seems like they’re doing the best they can to help, but they’re so far behind and the system is so antiquated,” he said. “Them going person by person in the system. ... I don’t see how they’re ever really going to catch up.”


vox--2020-04-24--How the 5G coronavirus conspiracy theory went from fringe to mainstream

The first link John Gregory saw pushing a connection between 5G and the coronavirus pandemic was on a French conspiracy website called Les moutons enragés , which loosely translates as “ The rabid sheep.
” A January 20 post floated that the millimeter wave spectrum used by 5G technology and Covid-19 , the disease caused by the novel coronavirus , could be related , pointing to reports about Wuhan installing 5G towers before the outbreak .
Three months later , conspiracy theorists making similar claims were setting cellphone towers on fire in Europe .
Gregory , a senior analyst at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an early glimpse of the 5G coronavirus conspiracy theory , but it didn ’ t take long before the fake news started to spread .
Two days after the French blog post , a Belgian newspaper called Het Laatste Nieuws published an interview with a local doctor , who floated the unfounded claim that the coronavirus outbreak could be linked to 5G cellphone towers installed near Wuhan in 2019 .
The article was taken down within hours , but the theory had already spread to English-language Facebook pages .
Gregory wasn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a crowd that has been saying that 5G is harmful to human health for years , ever since 5G was first being proposed [ and ] well before any towers or networks were online , ” he told Recode .
“ This is just their latest attempt to push those claims , tying them onto this current news story.
” Initial theories about the relationship between the coronavirus and 5G have now ballooned into all sorts of wild speculation .
Some suggest that 5G networks cause radiation , which , in turn , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reports of the novel coronavirus were actually a cover-up for the installation of 5G towers .
A few accounts push the idea that 5G and Covid-19 are part of a broader effort to “ depopulate ” Earth .
Some think it might be connected to the American agriculture titan Monsanto .
As out-there as all this seems , it ’ s also dangerous .
As certain people fall for these theories and act out , they stand to harm themselves and others .
By early April , conspiracy theorists were setting cell towers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ intersect with other conspiracy-minded communities like anti-vaxxers , raising fears that the towers could pose a threat to public health .
In the face of these fears , it remains unclear if the platforms where these ideas are spreading — Facebook , Twitter , and YouTube — can do anything to stop the madness .
5G conspiracy theories have been around for years The loose and incorrect reasons some have connected 5G technology to the coronavirus outbreak are myriad and maddening .
Some seem to think that both 5G and the coronavirus are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ somehow .
Others point to suspicious sources like misunderstood legislation as evidence that the government is hiding something in this global crisis .
But ultimately , most of these ideas draw on an established well of confused concern about 5G technology and longstanding fears about new cellular technologies .
“ This really crosses the spectrum — lots and lots of political leanings and different types of conspiracy theory can find something in the 5G theory , ” explains Tom Phillips , the editor of Full Fact , a UK-based fact-checking organization , pointing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the introduction of 3G and wifi .
“ A lot of those fears were just transplanted onto 5G when the rollout of that began.
” Tinfoil-hat types have found company on the internet from the early days of the technology .
There are the 9/11 truthers , the people who call mass shooting survivors “ crisis actors , ” and those who believe contrails ( water condensation left in the sky by airplanes ) are actually odious chemicals .
The theories , however untrue , tend to bleed into one another , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ still lack answers to many basic questions .
The Covid-19 pandemic is no different .
The genre of conspiracy theories linked to wireless technology has been around for decades , and the debate over whether things like cellphones lead to brain cancer or mind control has gained newfound relevance with the rollout of 5G technology .
Some theories postulate that 5G , like earlier generations of cellular technology , also causes cancer or , somehow , kills birds .
Others are more extreme , suggesting that the technology can cause “ electromagnetic sensitivity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the immune system .
Last year , the New York Times traced the present 5G anxiety to a Florida physicist named Bill Curry , who published incorrect research showing a correlation between rising frequency of radio waves and tissue damage in the brain .
Curry failed to account for the fact that human brains are shielded from such radiation by their skin and skulls , but a chart he made about the theory has become canon in the world of cellular technology conspiracy theories .
The Russian television network RT has pointed to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dangers of 5G technology , as has Infowars founder Alex Jones .
Infowars even sells a “ 5G Kills ” T-shirt .
Many of the sites that promoted 5G conspiracy theories are now steering their audiences toward the 5G coronavirus connection .
The “ uncensored health news ” website Natural News , for example , has long warned of the supposed dangers of 5G technology .
Lately , the site has run headlines like : “ Did the 5G rollout in Wuhan damage the innate cellular defense cells of the population , putting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ death from coronavirus ?
” And as the initial spread suggests , the 5G coronavirus conspiracy theory has certainly found supporters on social media .
Many Covid-19 conspiracy theories have festered on anti-5G Facebook groups , like the nearly year-old , 8,000-member-strong group “ Stop 5G Global Community ” and the three-year-old “ Lawful Stop5G Rebellion No Violence , ” which has almost 35,000 members .
Twitter and YouTube similarly are hot spots for spreading 5G misinformation , and Bloomberg reports that there is some evidence of a coordinated effort to push 5G @ @ @ @ @ @ @ origins of such a campaign remain unclear .
This idea went mainstream because influential people amplified it It looks like the earliest posts linking 5G and Covid-19 popped up in mid-January .
That newspaper article about the Belgian doctor is often cited as an inciting incident .
Still , it ’ s difficult to find the precise origin for the 5G coronavirus conspiracy theory .
Zignal Labs , an impact intelligence platform that studies online discourse , identified a Twitter account that on January 19 tweeted , “ Wuhan has 5,000+ # 5G @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — is it a disease or 5G ?
” while retweeting a Russia Today article about a new , flu-like virus in China .
Although the post got little engagement , it ’ s a sign that the theory had already been spreading to some degree .
The 5G coronavirus conspiracy nevertheless festered on the internet for two more months before it started to surge in mentions , according to Zignal Labs data collected from Twitter and other platforms .
The plot really took off when celebrities started to tell their followers about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the pandemic .
In March , interest spiked around the time that singer Keri Hilson tweeted : Interest surged again at the start of April , when the attacks on as many as 50 cell towers in the UK became an international news story , and eventually leading executives of companies like Verizon and Vodafone to ask government officials to intervene .
The flurry of celebrities amplifying the conspiracy theory continued .
Rapper Wiz Khalifa tweeted on April 3 : “ Corona ?
5g ?
Or both ?
” That same day , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the theory on Instagram , where he has more than 2 million followers ( these posts have since been deleted ) .
British rapper M.I.A.
, boxer Amir Khan , actor John Cusack , music producer Teddy Riley , and TV personality Amanda Holden all shared thoughts about the conspiracy with their millions of followers around this time .
As recently as April 20 , conservative commentators Diamond and Silk were warning their millions of followers of the supposed link between 5G and coronavirus .
QAnon supporters have also gotten involved in promoting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has argued that the symptoms of Covid-19 are suspiciously “ similar to exposure to 5G , ” which is not true , and has linked the rollout of 5G in Italy to the country ’ s high infection rate .
She said in a tweet , “ If you try to connect the dots from Covid-19 ( which I am implying is a made-up illness to explain the side effects of the 5G rollout ) to 5G , the media will tell you it is a conspiracy theory.
” Conspiracy theorists have also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that Bill Gates might be behind the virus , which is currently the most popular Covid-19 conspiracy theory online , according to Zignal Labs .
The theory posits that Bill Gates not only caused the outbreak but also , somehow , used 5G to do it .
One tweet identified by Recode , which has garnered thousands of likes and retweets , falsely posits the alleged Bill Gates connection and finds it suspicious that Facebook is blocking accounts that share information about the 5G coronavirus conspiracy .
This or other theories about 5G @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s not the point .
In a pandemic , one person ’ s understanding of reality and especially how that causes them to behave has a direct impact on the health of those around them .
In the UK arson attacks , for example , vandals tried to burn down a cell tower being used by a nearby hospital and , likely , by very sick patients trying to communicate with loved ones .
In any given community , those who doubt the reality of the coronavirus pandemic might also be resistant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the virus .
“ If you think that 5G is causing coronavirus , then why would you wear a mask ?
Why would you social distance ?
” warns Alan Duke of Lead Stories , another fact-checking organization that partners with Facebook .
Things could get worse as time goes on .
Research from Zignal Labs shows overlaps between anti-vaccination conspiracy theories and the 5G theory .
This could be cause for concern , as certain conspiracy theorists might refuse a Covid-19 vaccine when one is eventually produced .
That could put @ @ @ @ @ @ @ companies are struggling to keep up An especially frustrating element of all this is how much tech companies have struggled to combat coronavirus misinformation .
As long as the pandemic has been in the news , there has been a seemingly endless torrent of false information about it .
The federal government , for one , has taken a stand against this particular conspiracy .
In a statement to Recode , a spokesperson for the Federal Communications Commission ( FCC ) insisted that “ 5G technology has nothing whatsoever to do with the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has directed people to the Federal Emergency Management Agency ’ s rumor control page for more information on this and other conspiracy theories .
As coronavirus conspiracy theories have grown more prominent , tech platforms have become more aggressive .
But none of them has completely conquered the problem of suppressing false information about the coronavirus pandemic , especially as it relates to 5G technology .
Facebook says it ’ s significantly expanded its willingness to take down fake news and conspiracy theories related to the coronavirus .
The company once simply flagged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ using third-party partners like Lead Stories and Full Fact .
Now posts that include false claims about 5G and Covid-19 are being taken down , along with other false coronavirus-related content .
Facebook has also started retroactively notifying people that they have read false content and is limiting the distribution of groups that continue to share fake news .
Last week , Facebook removed two large anti-5G groups .
The takedown followed a report from the anti-hate nonprofit Hope Not Hate that people were using those communities to actively push for the destruction @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anti-5G Facebook groups remain active and host discussions of conspiracy theories about Bill Gates .
YouTube has also tried to be more assertive about this content .
The video platform took down an interview with British conspiracy theorist David Icke after he floated the 5G theory in a livestreamed interview .
According to the company , content that pushes the idea that the virus doesn ’ t exist or is caused by 5G now violates its policies and is supposed to be removed .
Still , at the time of publication , searching @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of videos .
Twitter is only taking down certain posts .
A spokesperson told Recode that the platform is prioritizing taking down posts that include “ a call to action that could potentially cause harm.
” The company says that since March 18 , it ’ s taken down more than 2,200 tweets violating its rules around Covid-19 content .
There ’ s a chance this struggle to contain a dangerous conspiracy theory will endure .
Part of what drove the 5G coronavirus conspiracy to the mainstream was a lack of good information @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it works , questions that scientists are still working to answer .
But the theory about 5G and Covid-19 existed in relative online obscurity until it was amplified by people with influence .
Around the same time , others took to the streets , lighting fires and forcing the media , politicians , and corporate leaders to respond .
One possible upside to the theory seeing the spotlight is that it ’ s also attracting scrutiny .
Believers can ’ t stay inside their filter bubbles as easily when the conspiracy is being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chance the prominence of the 5G coronavirus conspiracy will abate in the coming months .
The moderators at technology platforms like Facebook and Twitter know what to look for , and that might help .
Conspiracy theories like this rarely go away completely , though .
It will likely join the ranks of its predecessors : the ones about 5G killing birds or older cellular technologies causing brain cancer or wifi leading to mind control .
It ’ s part of the canon now .
We can only hope the fact that more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also means that more people know it ’ s not true .
Open Sourced is made possible by Omidyar Network .
All Open Sourced content is editorially independent and produced by our journalists .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

The first link John Gregory saw pushing a connection between 5G and the coronavirus pandemic was on a French conspiracy website called Les moutons enragés, which loosely translates as “The rabid sheep.” A January 20 post floated that the millimeter wave spectrum used by 5G technology and Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, could be related, pointing to reports about Wuhan installing 5G towers before the outbreak. Three months later, conspiracy theorists making similar claims were setting cellphone towers on fire in Europe.
Gregory, a senior analyst at the internet trust tool NewsGuard, caught an early glimpse of the 5G coronavirus conspiracy theory, but it didn’t take long before the fake news started to spread. Two days after the French blog post, a Belgian newspaper called Het Laatste Nieuws published an interview with a local doctor, who floated the unfounded claim that the coronavirus outbreak could be linked to 5G cellphone towers installed near Wuhan in 2019. The article was taken down within hours, but the theory had already spread to English-language Facebook pages. Gregory wasn’t surprised.
“There’s been a crowd that has been saying that 5G is harmful to human health for years, ever since 5G was first being proposed [and] well before any towers or networks were online,” he told Recode. “This is just their latest attempt to push those claims, tying them onto this current news story.”
Initial theories about the relationship between the coronavirus and 5G have now ballooned into all sorts of wild speculation. Some suggest that 5G networks cause radiation, which, in turn, triggers the virus. Others float that reports of the novel coronavirus were actually a cover-up for the installation of 5G towers. A few accounts push the idea that 5G and Covid-19 are part of a broader effort to “depopulate” Earth. Some think it might be connected to the American agriculture titan Monsanto.
As out-there as all this seems, it’s also dangerous. As certain people fall for these theories and act out, they stand to harm themselves and others. By early April, conspiracy theorists were setting cell towers on fire in Europe and starting to intersect with other conspiracy-minded communities like anti-vaxxers, raising fears that the towers could pose a threat to public health. In the face of these fears, it remains unclear if the platforms where these ideas are spreading — Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube — can do anything to stop the madness.
5G conspiracy theories have been around for years
The loose and incorrect reasons some have connected 5G technology to the coronavirus outbreak are myriad and maddening. Some seem to think that both 5G and the coronavirus are new, so they must be connected somehow. Others point to suspicious sources like misunderstood legislation as evidence that the government is hiding something in this global crisis. But ultimately, most of these ideas draw on an established well of confused concern about 5G technology and longstanding fears about new cellular technologies.
“This really crosses the spectrum — lots and lots of political leanings and different types of conspiracy theory can find something in the 5G theory,” explains Tom Phillips, the editor of Full Fact, a UK-based fact-checking organization, pointing out that similar fears were expressed during the introduction of 3G and wifi. “A lot of those fears were just transplanted onto 5G when the rollout of that began.”
Tinfoil-hat types have found company on the internet from the early days of the technology. There are the 9/11 truthers, the people who call mass shooting survivors “crisis actors,” and those who believe contrails (water condensation left in the sky by airplanes) are actually odious chemicals. The theories, however untrue, tend to bleed into one another, and they can feed on crises where we still lack answers to many basic questions. The Covid-19 pandemic is no different.
The genre of conspiracy theories linked to wireless technology has been around for decades, and the debate over whether things like cellphones lead to brain cancer or mind control has gained newfound relevance with the rollout of 5G technology. Some theories postulate that 5G, like earlier generations of cellular technology, also causes cancer or, somehow, kills birds. Others are more extreme, suggesting that the technology can cause “electromagnetic sensitivity,” bringing about headaches and harming the immune system.
Last year, the New York Times traced the present 5G anxiety to a Florida physicist named Bill Curry, who published incorrect research showing a correlation between rising frequency of radio waves and tissue damage in the brain. Curry failed to account for the fact that human brains are shielded from such radiation by their skin and skulls, but a chart he made about the theory has become canon in the world of cellular technology conspiracy theories. The Russian television network RT has pointed to such ideas to push theories about the dangers of 5G technology, as has Infowars founder Alex Jones. Infowars even sells a “5G Kills” T-shirt.
Many of the sites that promoted 5G conspiracy theories are now steering their audiences toward the 5G coronavirus connection. The “uncensored health news” website Natural News, for example, has long warned of the supposed dangers of 5G technology. Lately, the site has run headlines like: “Did the 5G rollout in Wuhan damage the innate cellular defense cells of the population, putting the people at risk of complications and death from coronavirus?”
And as the initial spread suggests, the 5G coronavirus conspiracy theory has certainly found supporters on social media. Many Covid-19 conspiracy theories have festered on anti-5G Facebook groups, like the nearly year-old, 8,000-member-strong group “Stop 5G Global Community” and the three-year-old “Lawful Stop5G Rebellion No Violence,” which has almost 35,000 members. Twitter and YouTube similarly are hot spots for spreading 5G misinformation, and Bloomberg reports that there is some evidence of a coordinated effort to push 5G coronavirus content, though the details and origins of such a campaign remain unclear.
This idea went mainstream because influential people amplified it
It looks like the earliest posts linking 5G and Covid-19 popped up in mid-January. That newspaper article about the Belgian doctor is often cited as an inciting incident.
Still, it’s difficult to find the precise origin for the 5G coronavirus conspiracy theory. Zignal Labs, an impact intelligence platform that studies online discourse, identified a Twitter account that on January 19 tweeted, “Wuhan has 5,000+ #5G base stations now and 50,000 by 2021 — is it a disease or 5G?” while retweeting a Russia Today article about a new, flu-like virus in China. Although the post got little engagement, it’s a sign that the theory had already been spreading to some degree. The 5G coronavirus conspiracy nevertheless festered on the internet for two more months before it started to surge in mentions, according to Zignal Labs data collected from Twitter and other platforms.
The plot really took off when celebrities started to tell their followers about the supposed link between of 5G and the pandemic. In March, interest spiked around the time that singer Keri Hilson tweeted:
People have been trying to warn us about 5G for YEARS. Petitions, organizations, studies...what we’re going thru is the affects of radiation. 5G launched in CHINA. Nov 1, 2019. People dropped dead. See attached & go to my IG stories for more. TURN OFF 5G by disabling LTE!!!
Interest surged again at the start of April, when the attacks on as many as 50 cell towers in the UK became an international news story, and eventually leading executives of companies like Verizon and Vodafone to ask government officials to intervene.
The flurry of celebrities amplifying the conspiracy theory continued. Rapper Wiz Khalifa tweeted on April 3: “Corona? 5g? Or both?” That same day, actor Woody Harrelson posted a video about the theory on Instagram, where he has more than 2 million followers (these posts have since been deleted). British rapper M.I.A., boxer Amir Khan, actor John Cusack, music producer Teddy Riley, and TV personality Amanda Holden all shared thoughts about the conspiracy with their millions of followers around this time. As recently as April 20, conservative commentators Diamond and Silk were warning their millions of followers of the supposed link between 5G and coronavirus.
QAnon supporters have also gotten involved in promoting the 5G conspiracy. One Q follower has argued that the symptoms of Covid-19 are suspiciously “similar to exposure to 5G,” which is not true, and has linked the rollout of 5G in Italy to the country’s high infection rate. She said in a tweet, “If you try to connect the dots from Covid-19 (which I am implying is a made-up illness to explain the side effects of the 5G rollout) to 5G, the media will tell you it is a conspiracy theory.”
Conspiracy theorists have also connected the 5G narrative with the claim that Bill Gates might be behind the virus, which is currently the most popular Covid-19 conspiracy theory online, according to Zignal Labs. The theory posits that Bill Gates not only caused the outbreak but also, somehow, used 5G to do it. One tweet identified by Recode, which has garnered thousands of likes and retweets, falsely posits the alleged Bill Gates connection and finds it suspicious that Facebook is blocking accounts that share information about the 5G coronavirus conspiracy.
This or other theories about 5G and coronavirus seem ridiculous, but that’s not the point. In a pandemic, one person’s understanding of reality and especially how that causes them to behave has a direct impact on the health of those around them. In the UK arson attacks, for example, vandals tried to burn down a cell tower being used by a nearby hospital and, likely, by very sick patients trying to communicate with loved ones. In any given community, those who doubt the reality of the coronavirus pandemic might also be resistant to taking measures to prevent the spread of the virus.
“If you think that 5G is causing coronavirus, then why would you wear a mask? Why would you social distance?” warns Alan Duke of Lead Stories, another fact-checking organization that partners with Facebook.
Things could get worse as time goes on. Research from Zignal Labs shows overlaps between anti-vaccination conspiracy theories and the 5G theory. This could be cause for concern, as certain conspiracy theorists might refuse a Covid-19 vaccine when one is eventually produced. That could put more vulnerable people at risk.
Tech companies are struggling to keep up
An especially frustrating element of all this is how much tech companies have struggled to combat coronavirus misinformation. As long as the pandemic has been in the news, there has been a seemingly endless torrent of false information about it.
The federal government, for one, has taken a stand against this particular conspiracy. In a statement to Recode, a spokesperson for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) insisted that “5G technology has nothing whatsoever to do with the spread of the coronavirus.” The agency has directed people to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s rumor control page for more information on this and other conspiracy theories.
As coronavirus conspiracy theories have grown more prominent, tech platforms have become more aggressive. But none of them has completely conquered the problem of suppressing false information about the coronavirus pandemic, especially as it relates to 5G technology.
Facebook says it’s significantly expanded its willingness to take down fake news and conspiracy theories related to the coronavirus. The company once simply flagged these posts as having been fact-checked, using third-party partners like Lead Stories and Full Fact. Now posts that include false claims about 5G and Covid-19 are being taken down, along with other false coronavirus-related content. Facebook has also started retroactively notifying people that they have read false content and is limiting the distribution of groups that continue to share fake news.
Last week, Facebook removed two large anti-5G groups. The takedown followed a report from the anti-hate nonprofit Hope Not Hate that people were using those communities to actively push for the destruction of phone masts. Still, some anti-5G Facebook groups remain active and host discussions of conspiracy theories about Bill Gates.
YouTube has also tried to be more assertive about this content. The video platform took down an interview with British conspiracy theorist David Icke after he floated the 5G theory in a livestreamed interview. According to the company, content that pushes the idea that the virus doesn’t exist or is caused by 5G now violates its policies and is supposed to be removed. Still, at the time of publication, searching the platform could easily surface those types of videos.
Twitter is only taking down certain posts. A spokesperson told Recode that the platform is prioritizing taking down posts that include “a call to action that could potentially cause harm.” The company says that since March 18, it’s taken down more than 2,200 tweets violating its rules around Covid-19 content.
There’s a chance this struggle to contain a dangerous conspiracy theory will endure. Part of what drove the 5G coronavirus conspiracy to the mainstream was a lack of good information about how the virus spreads and how it works, questions that scientists are still working to answer. But the theory about 5G and Covid-19 existed in relative online obscurity until it was amplified by people with influence. Around the same time, others took to the streets, lighting fires and forcing the media, politicians, and corporate leaders to respond.
One possible upside to the theory seeing the spotlight is that it’s also attracting scrutiny. Believers can’t stay inside their filter bubbles as easily when the conspiracy is being debunked. So there’s a chance the prominence of the 5G coronavirus conspiracy will abate in the coming months. The moderators at technology platforms like Facebook and Twitter know what to look for, and that might help.
Conspiracy theories like this rarely go away completely, though. It will likely join the ranks of its predecessors: the ones about 5G killing birds or older cellular technologies causing brain cancer or wifi leading to mind control. It’s part of the canon now. We can only hope the fact that more people know about the 5G coronavirus conspiracy also means that more people know it’s not true.
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