What was claimed
The EG.5 variant of Covid-19 is a new 5G virus.
Our verdict
This is not true. Covid-19 is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The 5G network uses radio waves that do not harm people’s health.
The EG.5 variant of Covid-19 has nothing to do with 5G
23 August 2023
An Instagram influencer with more than 100,000 followers has claimed that the EG.5 variant of the Covid-19 virus is connected to the 5G mobile network.
In one video with more than 11,000 likes, and also shared on Facebook, he said: “A new COVID variant that just came out. Look at what it's called: “EG.5”. New COVID variant EG.5. Now say it backwards with me. Five G. Five G.
“Now go look back at 1918 when the Spanish flu came out and look what else they happened to turn on around the same time in 1918 that gave people the flu. Here we are in 2023 and they've got the new 5G virus coming your way.”
In a caption on the post, the influencer said: “I have $100 that if we start taking down those towers there isn’t anymore 5G virus to spread around.”
In a longer video on the same subject viewed more than 10,000 times, the influencer talks about “the scam that is Covid” and says: “I’ll be honest with you. I don’t really think that there really is any of these viruses… They put up the 5G towers and now we’ve got an EG.5 virus.”
As Full Fact has said many times before, there is no connection between the 5G mobile network and SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid. Nor is 5G connected with any of the Covid vaccines. Nor is there any evidence that 5G has been harming people in other ways.
SARS-CoV-2 is an infectious virus that has been isolated and studied many times. The flu pandemic of 1918 was also caused by a virus, not by radio waves as the post seems to be suggesting.
The radio waves used in the 5G network are a form of non-ionising radiation, which means it does not directly damage the DNA inside cells in the body.
Public Health England (now part of the UK Health Security Agency) has said that the introduction of the 5G network should have “no consequences for public health”.
Bad information on social media can harm people’s lives, especially if they use it to make decisions about their health.
We’ve approached the creator of these videos for comment.
Image courtesy of Jamie Street
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the 5G network does not cause disease and has nothing to do with Covid.