FALSE: DO NOT SHARE
Claim:
COVID-19 was created to cause an economic crash so corporations could take over.
Answer:
False. Whilst COVID-19 has damaged the global economy it is thought to have originated from wildlife.
FURTHER INFORMATION
David Icke is pictured in this video theorising that the coronavirus has been engineered by an economic elite to cause an economic crash. This crash would wipe out small and medium-sized businesses, leaving large corporations free to run everything.
Covid-19 has had a severe impact on the global economy. Stock markets have dramatically fallen, the price of oil has crashed and a global recession is expected in the coming months, for instance JP Morgan expects the U.S. economy to shrink by 14%. This is due to the social distancing and quarantine measures brought in to slow the spread of the virus, which has hit both the supply and demand sides of the global economy, halting global trade. The Covid-19 pandemic has also coincided with a price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, two of the world’s biggest oil producers.
Many national governments including the US and UK have put in place huge and unprecedented packages to support workers and businesses, both small and large, through this difficult time. Small businesses play a vital role in a national economy and governments will want to protect that sector.
Covid-19 is caused by a coronavirus (SARS-COV-2), genetically related to SARS and MERS which caused previous outbreaks in 2003 and 2012. As we have previously written, whilst the origin of the virus (SARS-COV-2) has not been confirmed, it is thought to be a natural virus and was not engineered in a lab. According to the WHO this coronavirus probably has an ecological reservoir in bats, and ‘[a]ll available evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2 has a natural animal origin and is not a constructed virus. Many researchers have been able to look at the genomic features of SARS-CoV-2 and have found that evidence does not support that SARS-CoV-2 is a laboratory construct. If it were a constructed virus, its genomic sequence would show a mix of known elements. This is not the case”.
As the Lancet concludes, ‘Scientists from around the world overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife.’
SOURCE
WHO: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) Situation Report – 32
WHO: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) Situation Report – 94
JP Morgan: Assessing the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic
Origins of Claim
FULL TEXT OF CLAIM
“They are planning an enormous economic crash! I’ve been saying it even more since 2008… This coronavirus hysteria gives the excuse to do what they’re doing, and the outcome and consequences of what they’re doing is to dismantle the world economic system. This ‘Hunger Games’ society is designed to have no small businesses, no even medium sized businesses globally, just gigantic corporations that control and produce everything. Amazon is a classic example of what I’m talking about. What this coronavirus hysteria is creating is a situation, that by the hour is destroying small business.”
