The COVID-19 vaccines have proven to be over 90% effective and safe for humans. They are currently being distributed to the public.  There are no microchips in them for a plethora of reasons.  Mega-corporations and the government do not need to microchip you because you already give them the information they want, and you pay them for it.

This country and the world have entered an age of information and disinformation with the introduction of the internet and more recently, social media.  Many people use these platforms to spread falsehoods and outright lies to people who are fearful, uninformed, and mislead.  COVID-19 has exasperated this trend and there have been dangerous conspiracy theories floating around about microchips in the new vaccines.

The COVID-19 pandemic has raged through America more fiercely than other countries.  While plenty of people around the world have contracted the disease and died from it, the United States government’s approach was lackluster at best and malicious at worst.  The polarization of the mask issue and lack of discipline in following recommendations from the CDC have led to record-breaking numbers in cases and deaths.

The United States has surpassed 8.6 million cases.  The country with the next most cases is India, right above 7.9 million.  India has 1.36 billion people while America has only 328 million people. It stands to reason that a country with fewer people and a higher average income would be more proportional with the rest of the world.

Most other countries have not only fewer total cases, but less proportional cases as well.  Many anti-vax or anti-mask people will say we have more cases because America has many more people, but that does not hold water.  Even the two countries with populations far higher than America have fewer proportional and total cases.

Finally, after almost a year and hundreds of thousands of deaths, vaccines have been approved to be given to the general public by companies like Moderna and Pfizer, among others.

Message boards on platforms like Parler, 4Chan, Facebook and even Twitter have been discussing the vaccines since early on in the pandemic.  So-called anti-vax groups have sought to paint vaccination as some evil that only seeks to hurt people or, quite offensively, cause autism (there is no evidence for this).

Many of them have accused Bill Gates specifically of implementing microchips in the vaccines. To quote former adviser to former President Donald Trump, Roger Stone, they are “microchipping people so we can tell ‘whether you’ve been tested’.”

Depending on how far down the rabbit hole you go, some go as far as to claim the virus was made in a lab for this specific purpose.

There are plenty of problems with these ideas.  One reason being that no microchip that would be able to track any sort of information would be small enough to fit into a syringe the size of which is used to administer vaccines.  The vaccine is in a clear liquid form and the process by which it is given is nearly identical to the flu vaccine.  It is simply a two-part vaccine with a waiting period of around a month.  Why have these companies not microchipped people with the flu shot?  Why has this not been shouted about on the internet?

Another point: your browsers collect cookies on you to track a huge number of variables.  Companies like Apple, Microsoft, Verizon, AT&T, and others collect location data, communications, shopping habits, biometric data, and much more. Not only is this data being taken with your consent (remember the terms and services you did not read?), but you are paying them for the privilege, and they are selling it to advertisers.  Even after initial costs of buying your phone and computer, often these companies charge for services like connection to the internet, subscription services, fees, and other such payments.

Another is that you already willingly give up information to not only the telecommunications companies, but most likely the government as well.  The National Security Agency (NSA) is notorious for invading the privacy of American citizens since the passing of the PATRIOT Act of 2001 in the aftermath of 9/11.  This act authorized the mass surveillance of telephone calls between people, even citizens not suspected of any crimes.  With that situation being well-known, there is likely more classified means of collecting data on the public.  They do not even need a warrant or court-order to look at what you publicly post.

Many conspiracy theories like lizard-people running the planet or the Roswell crash being a government cover-up are mostly harmless; sometimes even fun.

When one is actively discouraging people from seeking a vaccine of a disease that is both infectious and deadly it is not only ignorant, it is actively harmful.  It is dangerous because it only serves to prolong the spread.  Occam’s Razor suggests the simplest theory to explain something is usually right, unless evidence suggests otherwise.

“The idea is to help the body learn one of the virus’s most distinguishing traits, so that the virus will be recognized and rapidly quashed if it tries to establish an infection.”- Katherine J. Wu

Is it more likely that some sort of multi-national cabal of evil scientists teamed up with billionaires to track individual people’s movements by injecting them with an undisclosed nanotechnology?  Or is it more likely that a disease, like countless others in history, broke out and we are advanced enough to figure out how to prevent it?  Even if they were microchipping people, they would make the vaccine mandatory to chip everyone, which is not the case.  All of these theories are even more insulting because of how unnecessary they are because basically everyone already owns a phone or computer.

We know exactly how the vaccine works and what is in it.  According to Katherine J. Wu of The New York Times,

“In the vaccine itself, there’s one active ingredient: a molecule called messenger RNA, or mRNA, which contains genetic instructions for a coronavirus protein called spike. Once injected, the mRNA will instruct human cells to manufacture spike, exposing the immune system to a highly recognizable feature of the virus. The idea is to help the body learn one of the virus’s most distinguishing traits, so that the virus will be recognized and rapidly quashed if it tries to establish an infection.”

This is pioneering biotechnology and people should be thankful we live in a world with modern medicine and an understanding of biology.  The vaccine is nothing other than a clever way to trick our immune systems into working more effectively against something they have never come up against.

All in all, the entire premise of these conspiracy theories is on shaky foundations because any information they might gain is already available via the device people use to spread this disinformation.  The motives of all individuals may be unclear, but there is a trend of media outlets instilling distrust of science and authority.  Conflicting rhetoric from the highest levels of the government could be a factor as well.

Think critically, scrutinize your information sources, and get vaccinated when available.