FALSE: DO NOT SHARE
Claim:
Governments have ‘overreacted’ to COVID-19 to eliminate the elderly.
Answer:
False. There is no treatment for COVID-19 and governments are acting to save lives.
FURTHER INFORMATION
Amongst other things, the YouTube video claims that governments around the world have purposefully overreacted to the coronavirus outbreak, creating unnecessary hysteria in order to promote ‘hidden agendas’. It argues that the most significant of these agendas is to ‘demonise’ the elderly population so that they are marginalised by society, and that the virus will ensure health systems are under so much pressure that older people don’t receive the treatment they require, whether it be for COVID-19 or other health issues. The video claims that the reason governments are doing this is because the elderly are costing governments vast amounts of money.
This claim is false. Whilst the video does use legitimate information from the WHO and various governments, it manipulates the data to a point where it is not only misleading, but untrue. For example, whilst plausible links are made between the rate of common flu in comparison to COVID-19 death toll figures, it is highly illogical to suggest this means governments are killing off the elderly population in an attempt to reduce the cost of state care they provide. In fact, the UK Government has issued multiple sets of guidance to ensure the elderly population are especially protected from the virus.
Furthermore, the video claims countries are excluding deaths of over-70s in COVID-19 statistics. This is also false with recent Office for National Statistics revealing one in five deaths in the UK were in age group 80 to 84 years.
SOURCES
Public Health England, ‘Guidance on social distancing for everyone in the UK’
Origins of Claim
FULL TEXT OF CLAIM
“They are exaggerating the importance of this infection. Now why are they doing that? I think it is all part of a demonization, marginalisation and dehumanisation of the elderly. I think that is one of the hidden agendas. That’s why they want to lock up the over-70-year-olds. Don’t forget that doctors from all around the world have said they won’t be able to treat over-70s if they get the coronavirus, or for whatever they have wrong with them, because they will be so busy treating the millions of people who have the coronavirus.”
“Now you have to remember that old people around the world are costing government’s a lot of money. They are costing trillions in care and pensions. In order to deal with this, governments have been trying to reduce the amount of care they provide for a long time. For example, in the UK old people who have macular degeneration will very often find it impossible to get treatment to prevent them going blind, and yet there seems to be plenty of money for cosmetic surgery and gender reassignment.”
“The United Nations have made it very easy for governments by saying anyone over seventy who dies doesn’t have to be counted in the illness/death statistics for their country. That means when old people die, the countries health systems don’t seem to be doing that badly because the over-70s don’t count…all this is part of the hidden agenda.”
