Fake news that COVID-19 is a hoax, UN depopulating earth are spreading in America

The video lasts just 13 seconds and shows only the view from an automobile quietly driving past a hospital entrance. However the one who posted it on Twitter used the footage to sarcastically question reports of “apocalyptic conditions” at Mount Sinai Queens in New York City.

That video and a large number of others like it have already been spreading on social media through the #FilmYourHospital hashtag. The persons taking and posting videos of quiet scenes outside hospitals are promoting a right-wing conspiracy theory that fear-mongering media outlets and Democrats are intentionally exaggerating COVID-19's deadly toll. The clip from Queens racked up more than 227,000 views in under three weeks.

“It is rather sad because I'm dealing with a team of thousands of folks who are putting their lives at risk. They are struggling each day to provide the very best care they are able to in horrendous conditions,” said Dr. David Reich, president of Mount Sinai Queens and Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. The Mount Sinai system has treated a large number of coronavirus patients.

Hospitals aren't the only targets of the far-right fringe through the pandemic. The coronavirus has breathed fresh life into old conspiracy theories and inspired a mishmash of new ones, with a cast of villains which includes Bill Gates, 5G wireless technology, the US and President Donald Trump's political foes.

New York can be the setting for one of the wildest virus-related conspiracy theories circulating on social media _ that the pandemic is masking a military procedure to rescue a large number of deformed “mole children” from the clutches of sex traffickers in underground tunnels beneath medical tents recently erected in Central Park.

Most of the social media accounts driving that baseless story and the #FilmYourHospital campaign belong to followers of “QAnon,” a far-right, apocalyptic conspiracy theory that believes Trump is waging a secret campaign against “deep state” enemies and Satan-worshiping Democrats who victimize children. The Twitter user who posted the March 29 video of Mount Sinai Queens includes a profile that includes the QAnon slogan “WWG1WGA,” which means “Where we go one, we go all.”

Alex Friedfeld, an investigative researcher for the Anti-Defamation League's Focus on Extremism, said quarantine conditions are ripe for conspiracy theories to mutate and quickly spread. The purveyors are scared and cooped up of their homes with abundant free time to spend on the internet.

“We are in a period of crisis, so persons are frightened,” he said. “They want for explanations. Conspiracy theories could be comforting because they basically place order on chaos. A lot of them give you somebody at fault, and that may be comforting to persons at an uncertain time.”

Friedfeld said the virus has become fodder for old tropes like “Agenda 21,” a conspiracy theory that a network of global elites are by using a United Nations resolution adopted in 1992 to control citizens and depopulate the earth.

Other new conspiracy theories being fueled by the virus include one which claims maps show a connection between 5G networks and coronavirus outbreaks. Another holds that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates intends to employ a COVID-19 vaccine to track and control the world's population. Fox News host Laura Ingraham amplified the narrative with an April 7 tweet having said that, “Digitally tracking Americans' every move has been a dream of the globalists for years.”

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Tuesday that COVID-19 misinformation is a poisonous threat to the world and urged social media organizations to accomplish more to counter it. Social media platforms say they want to stop the spread of coronavirus hoaxes and hook up users with reliable information.

Facebook is removing content linked to the “#FilmYourHospital” hashtag when it violates the social network's policies, according to company spokesman Andy Stone. The business says it removes coronavirus-related misinformation from Facebook and Instagram that could contribute to “imminent physical harm.”

Twitter says it is removing COVID-19 content “when it includes a call to action that could potentially cause harm.” One of the first and most popular tweets promoting #FilmYourHospital remains on the platform. DeAnna Lorraine, a California Republican who unsuccessfully challenged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, posted a video taken outside a Los Angeles-area hospital and urged her followers to obtain the hashtag trending. The video she tweeted on March 29 has 1.4 million views.

A copycat video posted on Twitter showed a clear parking lot and vacant tents outside University INFIRMARY Tucson in Arizona. “We have to be picketing in protest of the hoax!” an individual tweeted.

A hospital official said the surface appears quiet for the reason that medical center is not allowing visitors, has furloughed nonessential employees, canceled elective procedures and stopped using the tents to test outpatients with mild virus symptoms. Dr. Christian Bime, medical director of the intensive care unit at the Tucson hospital, said he has treated approximately 20 COVID-19 patients, some of whom have died.

“This is simply not a hoax. This is real. They are real patients who have real families,” Bime said.

A Mount Sinai spokeswoman says the lobby inside its Queen hospital appeared empty in the video since it also barred visitors. Another Twitter user posted a copycat video outside Mount Sinai's Manhattan hospital, which normally has about 970 patients but had approximately 1,250 on Wednesday. Around 700 were COVID-19 patients, including roughly 150 on ventilators, according to Reich. He called it “the worst crisis of our lifetimes.”

“There is indeed much obvious evidence that this is real. It almost defies imagination that anybody would need to try to prove it,” Reich said.