- 19 minutes ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Where is the aerosol going to come out?
00:02Right out of that hole.
00:04All these other holes are sample ports,
00:05so we can measure the air quality in real time.
00:08See you in a few minutes.
00:10This is already terrible.
00:15Let's face it, there are so many government conspiracies,
00:19it can be hard to tell what's real and what's not.
00:22My name is Andrew Bustamante,
00:24and I am a former covert CIA intelligence officer.
00:26And I'm going to pressure test the most sensational,
00:30ripped-from-the-headlines conspiracy theories out there,
00:33to help you separate fact from fiction.
00:47March 2020.
00:49The world shuts down almost overnight.
00:53Like a sci-fi movie, except no one's leaving the theater.
00:57Body bags.
00:58Empty streets.
01:00Isolation.
01:01Tonight, the stark new coronavirus warning.
01:03The WHO saying we're in a new and dangerous phase,
01:06and the pandemic is accelerating.
01:08As the virus spread,
01:10so did questions about where it came from.
01:13Was it nature?
01:14An animal virus that made the leap to humans?
01:17A lab leak?
01:18A bioweapon?
01:19Or part of a nefarious planned scheme?
01:24On this episode, I'll be using CIA tradecraft,
01:27up-to-the-minute political insights,
01:30real-world demos and interviews with key experts
01:32to test scientific claims.
01:34Was this let out on purpose or by accident?
01:37Expose potential motives.
01:39China is exporting vaccines and personal protective equipment
01:43around the world.
01:44It was a huge win for Beijing.
01:45And pressure test fringe theories.
01:48I have to say this,
01:49don't try this at home.
01:51To investigate where COVID-19,
01:53the deadliest pandemic in the past 100 years,
01:56actually came from.
01:58And what I end up discovering is shocking.
02:01That is absolutely terrifying to hear you say that.
02:19The COVID-19 pandemic may be over,
02:22but the fallout sure isn't.
02:24A recent poll shows that the majority of Americans
02:27believe that COVID split our country in two.
02:30Why?
02:31Because people didn't trust the information they were getting,
02:34and the origin story became one of the biggest flashpoints
02:37of distrust.
02:38The initial explanation was that the virus originated in animals
02:41and jumped to humans.
02:47It's a process called natural spillover.
02:50And since many of the first COVID-19 patients
02:53were traced to a wet market in Wuhan, China,
02:55where live exotic animals were sold for meat,
02:58many scientists believe this is where the pandemic started.
03:02That virus was brought there with those live animals
03:05and it spilled over.
03:06Let's start by looking at what a wet market actually is.
03:10It sounds dark and exotic, but the idea is simple.
03:13It's an open-air market that is called wet
03:15because everything in it needs water.
03:17Washing, rinsing, keeping things cold.
03:20But somewhere along the way, wet market became shorthand
03:23for a place full of strange animals and stranger tastes.
03:27The perspective shifts only when you zoom in on a darker time
03:30in a specific slice of southern China.
03:33From 1959 to 1961, China went through one of the worst famines in history.
03:39A combination of failed government policies and environmental pressures
03:44left tens of millions of people dead.
03:46In the decades that followed, food security became a national priority.
03:51Beginning in the late 1970s, China introduced market reforms
03:55that allowed farmers more control over what they produced and sold.
03:59Over time, that shift helped fuel a growing industry in animal farming,
04:03including the breeding and sale of wild species.
04:06By the 2000s, some of these animals were classified as agricultural products
04:11and sold in markets across China,
04:13bringing humans into closer contact with wildlife than ever before.
04:20At CIA, we assess theories based on a level of probability,
04:24based on the reliability of the source and the reliability of the information.
04:29I'm going to use this probability matrix throughout my investigation
04:32to help us assess each theory as we explore.
04:36So, with natural spillover being a possibility,
04:39how do we know if COVID really did come from nature?
04:42We don't just ask what's possible, we ask what the evidence supports.
04:47So, what does the evidence from Wuhan actually tell us?
04:51To dig into the question, I'm reaching out to Leah Ustasiewicz,
04:54managing news editor at the New York Post,
04:56because in 2020, she and her team reported on intriguing research
05:00from Harvard University that injects doubt into the spillover theory.
05:04Leo, we all know the commonly accepted theory of the origin of COVID-19.
05:08What happened to that wet market after Chinese authorities
05:11basically told the world it was the cause of COVID?
05:14It was shut down.
05:15So, it all gave credence to this notion that the wet market was ground zero for COVID.
05:20How did the World Health Organization handle it at the start?
05:23They did send a team over pretty early on when we first learned that COVID was spreading.
05:28But they were very limited in what they could investigate.
05:32They were unable to talk to the right people, you know, go into the market.
05:37They were stymied by the Chinese authorities.
05:40They were very limited in what they could find.
05:43What I'd like to do is actually build a timeline and see if that doesn't paint a picture for us.
05:48Yep.
05:48All right. You were saying that everything started in December of 2019.
05:53Chinese authorities reporting pneumonia of unknown cause.
05:57Correct. It was known as novel coronavirus at the time.
06:01And January 11th is when China reported its first death.
06:04Yes. And then January 13th, it finds its way to Thailand.
06:08And January 15th, to Japan.
06:11By January 20th, 21st, it looks like that's when the World Health Organization first visited Wuhan.
06:17Right. And this also coincided with the first case being confirmed in the United States in Washington State.
06:23In March, it's a pandemic officially declared by the World Health Organization.
06:29And then shutdowns start happening all over the world.
06:33Tell me about the satellite images you found and the other story they tell.
06:36This report came out in June 2020.
06:41Harvard researchers analyzed this satellite data from the hospital parking lots in Wuhan.
06:46And it clearly showed that there was an uptick in people coming in and out of the hospitals much earlier
06:52than Chinese authorities said.
06:54So there is that six month gap of when the public first started learning about COVID to when symptoms really
07:02started in China.
07:03After it escaped one and a half months, China did not put any restrictions whatsoever.
07:08And by that, China allowed the virus to spread.
07:11Hang on. Could it just be an early flu season?
07:13There would have to be other data besides just an uptick in hospital traffic data.
07:18Correct. At the same time, there's an increase in searches from the Wuhan area for COVID symptoms, cough and diarrhea.
07:25And we're seeing now there's an inconsistency between when the first reports were coming in to the hospitals in Wuhan
07:33versus when the public was made aware of the existence of a new virus.
07:37Correct. When people tried to discuss an alternate theory of where COVID came from, they were cast aside.
07:44They were, you know, told they were conspiracy theorists.
07:48They were treated as pariahs.
07:50And I feel like the divisiveness could have been mitigated if we had gotten clear answers from the get go.
07:56It also suggests why there have been so many conspiracies that have grown out of the coronavirus pandemic.
08:02Absolutely. I think when people don't get straight answers, they fill those gaps themselves and they come up with other
08:09theories.
08:13Leah's reporting raises some real questions about the timeline and about how much we were told.
08:21But inconsistencies don't tell me where the virus came from.
08:25To study that, I need to understand how a virus like this actually jumps from animals to humans.
08:32I have to test the spillover theory for myself.
08:38So I've come here to the Rocky Mountain Wildlife Center to put myself in the zone where viruses can jump
08:45from animals to humans and see just how probable that risk is.
08:51First, we have to make sure we are fully from head to toe suited up in protective gear.
08:56That's good.
08:57So we're going to get you some gloves, a gown and a mask.
09:01Okay.
09:02We, of course, can get sick from our patients through mucus or if they bite us or scratch us.
09:10This is not an easy thing to use here.
09:12The CIA couldn't prepare you for this.
09:14Not for this.
09:16Emily, you're on the front lines, so I want to know what worries you.
09:20Avian influenza, we take that very seriously because it can make us sick.
09:26Right now, avian influenza goes from bird to bird or bird to cattle or bird to human.
09:31But we're watching it closely to make sure it doesn't mutate and then be able to go from human to
09:35human.
09:36Like COVID did.
09:37Exactly.
09:39So we have a great horned owl.
09:40We need to do an avian influenza test on it.
09:44The owl is the informal mascot for intelligence services worldwide.
09:49So it's really exciting to me that I get to handle a wild owl.
09:54Holy .
09:55She is huge.
09:58That is a gigantic animal.
10:01Don't put your finger in there.
10:02Oh, thank you.
10:03We are going to test for active infection.
10:05I'm going to put my thumb in her mouth.
10:07Wow.
10:08So now I have full control of the head.
10:10She can't bite me.
10:11She can't bite you.
10:12You know, it's shocking to me how much this resembled a COVID test for a human being.
10:17Oh, true.
10:18That is a fierce little animal.
10:20Emily, how do you feel about the idea that spillover from bats is what caused COVID-19 for people?
10:26What more than likely happened is a bat had a coronavirus in their system.
10:32And the virus would have had to spill over into multiple species before it hopped into humans.
10:37This is the most scientifically accepted theory.
10:40There's so much misinformation out there.
10:42But we live this stuff every single day.
10:47The Wildlife Center confirmed something important.
10:50Spillover from animals that can carry dangerous viruses, even owls and bird flu, isn't rare.
10:56It's common.
11:00A crowded market, infected wildlife, and sloppy handlers are very much ground zero for a pandemic.
11:06But if COVID-19 was a natural outbreak, what explains the contradictions in the timeline?
11:12And why was the official narrative locked down so fast?
11:16So my next question in this investigation is this.
11:20If this didn't happen in the wild, where else could it have started?
11:26When you look at Wuhan, just across the river, 10 miles from the wet market, what do you find there?
11:35It's almost beyond belief.
11:44As soon as the world learned of a new virus in Wuhan, the Chinese government claimed it came from wild
11:50animals
11:50at the wet market and spilled into humans.
11:53But the outbreak happened in the same city as the highly secure Wuhan Institute of Virology,
11:59where bat coronaviruses had been studied for years.
12:03That's a coincidence that's too hard to ignore.
12:06It fueled speculation that perhaps COVID-19 had leaked from a lab where nothing was supposed to ever escape.
12:13But is such a scenario even possible?
12:20Most people don't realize this, but in 1977, a strain of influenza known as the Russian flu spread around the
12:27world.
12:27Some scientists believe it may have originated from a lab accident after a version of the virus thought to be
12:33extinct suddenly reappeared.
12:36A decade earlier, a deadly virus later named Marburg infected lab workers handling imported monkeys.
12:43Seven people died.
12:46And in the early 2000s, the SARS virus, a close relative of COVID-19, escaped from labs multiple times,
12:53infecting researchers and triggering new outbreaks.
12:57These incidents are rare, but they're real.
13:01So the question isn't just, could a virus leak from a lab?
13:04It's, how probable is it today?
13:07So I am here at the Aerobiology Laboratory at the University of Colorado in Boulder
13:12to learn how viruses are safely contained.
13:15And more importantly, if it gives us any clues to the reality of a Wuhan lab leak of COVID-19.
13:22What kind of a lab is this?
13:25Most of our mission is to kill bad things in the air that you breathe.
13:29Our lab is the seatbelt for lungs.
13:34So we're about to go into an active lab.
13:38Kindergarten rule, keep your hands to yourself.
13:41What we grow in our lab is pretty much a rogues gallery of the things that make us and animals
13:49sick.
13:50Flu, whooping cough, different flavors of tuberculosis.
13:54And we store these cryogenically.
13:57So myself or any of our researchers can pull it out.
14:01We've got vials and vials of anything that you want.
14:04E. coli, SARS-CoV-2, hepatitis virus.
14:09Wow. Unbelievable.
14:11Within a week, I can have live virus, live bacteria, live fungi, whatever you want.
14:17That'll give you pneumonia if you inhale it.
14:19Oh my gosh, this is so crazy.
14:24Everything about this door says...
14:27Don't go in.
14:28It says don't go in, absolutely.
14:30But we're going in.
14:31Yeah. I'm excited.
14:33Nervous, but excited.
14:35What is the danger of the experiment that we're running right now?
14:40The danger is you get sick.
14:42Okay.
14:43With this first task, I want to experience how viruses are handled and how a dangerous spill could occur.
14:49So this is your new station.
14:52It's completely contained.
14:54And what you have here is a laminar air curtain.
14:58So what's outside stays outside.
15:01What's inside stays inside.
15:03So that's real coronavirus.
15:05That is real coronavirus.
15:06And those are real brain cells.
15:07Those are real brain cells.
15:09Yes, sir.
15:09Wow.
15:10What we can do is figure out where the lethal dose is.
15:14Lethal dose meaning how much coronavirus it takes to kill brain cells.
15:17That's right.
15:17And you're on deck.
15:20Take a big breath.
15:21Take your coronavirus.
15:22Open it up.
15:22And pour her into the trough.
15:25Now the hands of a surgeon come in.
15:28You're going to pick up eight of those.
15:30Push down until they're kind of secured in a row.
15:32That takes a little practice.
15:34And a few attempts.
15:36All right.
15:37Now you're going to go over.
15:39Pick up your virus.
15:40And now you're going to add them to the brain cells.
15:44Precision care and attention to detail.
15:47Dr. Hernandez wasn't kidding.
15:49This takes surgical precision.
15:51One small slip and I could spill a contagious virus.
15:56What happens if somebody actually spills live agent?
16:00So we have a protocol that we practice.
16:02I can walk you through what will happen if live agent actually gets outside.
16:07That's not live agent, is it?
16:09In this case, it's not.
16:11All right.
16:11So I'm going to simulate a spill.
16:14And then you're going to show me how I don't infect the world, right?
16:18Yes, sir.
16:19Man, I'm already nervous.
16:21It's not even real agents.
16:22And I'm already nervous.
16:24So there you are.
16:25You're going to pick up your virus.
16:26And you're going to drop the tool.
16:31There we go.
16:31We've got agent all over the floor.
16:33Come over here.
16:35In the back left, there's a bottle of sorbent.
16:37So now, Andy, you're going to pepper the floor with that white stuff.
16:42Cover it all in the whole radius.
16:44Okay, now you're going to soak all that, Andy, with good old rubbing alcohol, which is a great disinfectant.
16:50So that stuff soaks, kills all live virus.
16:56Dr. Hernandez, what is the most common kind of accident that would happen in a lab like this?
17:02Usually it's someone fumbling an instrument, dropping the tool, spilling a flask.
17:08But what happens in lab stays in lab, or is supposed to stay in lab.
17:13This lab has strict containment protocols with multiple safeguards to prevent anything from escaping.
17:19At CIA, we'd consider the probability of an accidental leak here as extremely low.
17:26But leaks can and do happen if rules aren't followed.
17:32Okay, audio check. Mark.
17:34Good copy, Dr. Hernandez.
17:36For a first-hand demonstration of how containment protocols work and air is cleaned,
17:41I'm about to do something crazy.
17:43I'm putting myself in a room where an airborne virus is actively circulating.
17:48If COVID came from a lab, it likely spread through the air.
17:51So to test that idea, I need to understand how airborne viruses behave
17:55and how easily they can escape containment.
17:57So I'm going into an aerosol chamber.
17:59Yes, sir.
18:00The purpose of these experiments is to figure out how long airborne pathogens like flu, coronavirus, RSV,
18:07survive in the air in classrooms and offices and so on.
18:11And then how do we kill it without harming us?
18:14What do I need to do to do this safely?
18:16Well, let's get you suited up.
18:19How are you feeling in there?
18:20Oh, like it's the end of the world.
18:23So I'm going to take you in the chamber.
18:26You'll see a little pink cloud come in.
18:29Okay. Where is the aerosol going to come out?
18:32Right out of that hole.
18:34See you in a few minutes.
18:38This is already terrible.
18:41Three, two, one. Here she comes.
18:46Well, we can hear it.
18:47Oh, you can see it too.
18:51And now it's starting to take off.
18:53Yeah.
18:54It really does feel like all of those scary movies.
18:57It is absolutely unnerving.
19:04So Andy, the instrumentation is telling us we've got quite a bit of particles in there.
19:10Once it disperses, you really wouldn't know that there is a cloud in here.
19:14We're going to start the filters now.
19:16Copy that.
19:18There's two filters on the floor to remove the aerosol.
19:23One last intervention we want to engage in.
19:26It's right above your head.
19:28That's a UV light and that'll inactivate any viruses in the air pretty rapidly.
19:33And it's safe for skin and eyes.
19:37Even if something did escape a lab, it's exercises and science like this that's going to keep us safe during
19:44the next pandemic.
19:46But it's also incredibly dangerous because that makes it possible for these live agents to get released into the wild.
19:52Because all it takes is someone not properly following protocol and everything can go wrong.
20:02Wow.
20:03How is the ride?
20:05Wow.
20:05Wow.
20:07So this helps to tell us what the total biological load in the air is.
20:11A biological load is essentially germs.
20:14Yeah. And you actually started up at about 4,000.
20:16And then within about two minutes, that HEPA filter in there with you dropped the particles down by 75%.
20:22So HEPA filters.
20:23In just two minutes.
20:24In just two minutes.
20:26Seeing the process up close makes it clear that labs like this are designed to contain viruses.
20:32But even the best systems rely on people and people make mistakes.
20:37What made coronavirus so different than some of the other outbreaks that have happened in our generation?
20:41If you remember the term about the coronavirus, novel coronavirus.
20:45There was something about the biochemistry of that little floating particle that most people had never seen before.
20:52And that's where the issue comes to.
20:54Hey, was this engineered?
20:56Was this let out on purpose or by accident as part of the genetic engineering process?
21:01And we don't have the answer to those questions yet.
21:04Though a lab leak is possible, what I saw suggests the protocols in Wuhan wouldn't be all that different from
21:10the ones at this lab.
21:11So if I can't prove a leak from the outside, maybe I need to look at the virus itself.
21:16Dr. Hernandez left me with an intriguing thread to follow.
21:20COVID-19 was a virus with novel biochemistry.
21:24The question is, are those features something we'd expect to see in nature?
21:28Or do they point to something else?
21:39Dr. Hernandez pointed me to something I can't ignore.
21:42COVID-19's unusual biochemistry.
21:45Maybe the virus itself might hold clues about where it came from.
21:51So I want to talk to molecular biologist Dr. Alina Chan.
21:55With a background in medical genetics and vector engineering, Dr. Chan has written a book exploring the origins of COVID
22:02-19.
22:03So I've been in a BSL-2 lab and the scientist that hosted me specifically said,
22:09there's an element inside the SARS-CoV-2 virus that they hadn't seen before.
22:14What is that? And can it tell us something about where COVID-19 came from?
22:18SARS-CoV-2 is unique amongst all SARS-like viruses.
22:22It has a special feature called the furin cleavage site.
22:26And this feature is what makes it really effective at infecting human cells.
22:31In 2018, the Wuhan scientists, together with their US partners, were trying to test different mutations.
22:37And they had plans to put these furin cleavage sites into SARS-like viruses.
22:41It was intended at predicting and preventing pandemics.
22:44And there's this really striking coincidence of all of the viruses in the world.
22:49This SARS-CoV-2 virus with a unique furin cleavage site that appeared in Wuhan.
22:54I mean, when I look at this through a lens of probability, the coincidence is glaringly strong.
23:00But strong coincidences can point to patterns or pull you to conclusions that aren't fully supported yet.
23:06These plans were leaked from inside the US government in 2021.
23:12In March 2020, influential scientists said that there was no plausible lab origin scenario for COVID-19.
23:20But since then, the private emails and messages of these scientists have been subpoenaed.
23:26And now we see that they were actually looking at a lab origin scenario.
23:31When you start talking about their likelihood that it came from a lab, what did that do to you and
23:39your reputation?
23:40Yeah, people were attacking us, saying that we were conspiracy theorists.
23:45I received many very unpleasant tweets.
23:50But many top virologists started sending me mail saying that we agree with you.
23:56But none of them made their stance, like, public.
23:58Because the harm to their reputation can be really strong.
24:02But does that exclude the possibility of natural spillover?
24:07No.
24:07The favorite natural origin hypothesis, which cannot be ruled out, is that the bats down in the southern regions infected
24:14an intermediate host,
24:16so some other kind of animal, or infected a person in Wuhan and caused an outbreak there.
24:21Why do you think so many conspiracy theories still surround the origin of COVID-19?
24:2720 million people died because of COVID-19.
24:31How can you just brush that aside?
24:34People need to know the truth.
24:36In 2023, there was already a COVID Origins Act that was passed,
24:40unanimously saying declassify the data, linking the Wuhan lab to the origin of COVID-19.
24:46But the intelligence community, over two administrations, refused to declassify the data.
24:53I am, I'm kind of overwhelmed.
24:57I'm gonna turn off my camera for a second.
25:00Yeah.
25:01Okay.
25:10I am on the verge of tears.
25:19Hearing how avoidable this could have been.
25:23And there are 20 million dead people.
25:29But we're not any safer.
25:32And I was on the side that kept secrets like this.
25:37And the people who have been crying conspiracy, they're closer to right than they are to wrong on this.
25:49Thank you. I just needed a, I needed a second to myself, Alina, to kind of process what you're talking
25:56about.
25:57And a lot of what you were saying was new information and emotional for me.
26:03I can't thank you enough for the work that you've done.
26:05Thank you, Andy.
26:08Dr. Chan makes a compelling case for the lab leak theory.
26:11But compelling doesn't mean conclusive.
26:14It means there are still questions that haven't been answered.
26:17Many continue to stand by the natural spillover theory to explain where COVID came from.
26:22Three evolutionary biologists, Michael Warby, Chris Anderson, and Eddie Holmes.
26:27They go through all the data.
26:29Could not be clearer.
26:30Animal to human spillover event that occurred in the western section of the United Markets.
26:34So why is it that two-thirds of the American public think it was a lab leak?
26:38Again, I think it's easier to conceive that.
26:41And it's nice to be able to blame somebody.
26:43And so it became political.
26:45And let's not forget, scientists around the world have been researching the virus and they mostly agree that it could
26:51have come from natural origins.
26:53But there's a catch.
26:55Because the sequences that scientists are working from have largely been controlled by China.
27:00These aren't coming from independent sources that have collected samples from Wuhan or early areas of infection.
27:06So while scientists may be in agreement, they're in agreement on limited information.
27:11And anytime there is missing data, there's always room for doubt.
27:15And that got people wondering if the virus's origin story was a lot darker.
27:20Could COVID-19 be a product of biological weapons research?
27:30I've looked at the possibility that COVID came from nature.
27:33And I've tested how an accident inside a lab could happen.
27:37But there's one more possibility I need to consider.
27:40What if it wasn't an accident at all?
27:44In the ongoing quest for geopolitical dominance, global superpowers go to great lengths to gain an edge.
27:50China follows a strategy called civil-military fusion.
27:54And the idea is pretty simple.
27:55Use science and technology to offset the West's military power.
28:01So understanding that science is central to China's military ambitions, does that include biological weapons research?
28:09Could COVID-19 be a product of this military project?
28:13It's a theory that took hold early on in the pandemic, especially among China's rivals like India.
28:20Was the Wuhan virus a bio-weapon?
28:22Was the aim to create the deadliest coronavirus ever?
28:25And with China determined to be the only superpower in all of Asia, it's not that far-fetched of an
28:31idea.
28:31So I've invited China expert Henrietta Levin, a former senior U.S. official at the State Department and current senior
28:38fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to discuss that question.
28:43Could China have intentionally created a biological weapon that led to the release of COVID?
28:48The Chinese Communist Party is fundamentally about control over everything that happens in the country.
28:55China fears instability in China more than anything else.
29:00And you can see even in the Chinese government's response to COVID, the amount of societal control was incredible.
29:10I mean, whether you could leave your house was dependent on what a government-sponsored app told you you could
29:16do.
29:16You see drones coming up to your window.
29:26And this really shocked a lot of Chinese citizens.
29:30So COVID actually brought organized protests onto the street in China for the first time in years and years.
29:41That alone would say to me that COVID is not working out for China.
29:49Were there benefits that might suggest that China deliberately released COVID?
29:54Well, remember early in the pandemic, Italy was hit very hard.
29:57China made a pretty big show of donating medical equipment to Italy.
30:03So you saw a huge outpouring of gratitude.
30:07Italy is a G7 country.
30:10So this was a pretty big political success for Beijing.
30:13And later in the pandemic, there's a critical six-month period where China is exporting massive amounts of vaccines and
30:23personal protective equipment around the world.
30:25Health diplomacy.
30:26Yes.
30:27And the U.S. isn't sharing vaccines with anyone.
30:30A huge win for China's popularity in the global south.
30:34Now, did they take advantage of a crisis to try and bolster influence?
30:40Yes.
30:40But just the chaos inside of China that was unleashed by this virus is something Beijing would never have intended.
30:48It would seem silly to risk losing it all because of a biological weapons effort.
30:56Based on what we know, it doesn't appear that COVID-19 fits the description of a biological weapon.
31:03But ruling that out doesn't end the investigation.
31:06It just shifts the question.
31:08If this wasn't about military power, what else could have motivated it?
31:12One answer some people point to is money.
31:15Whoever makes the first successful COVID-19 vaccine also stands to make a fortune.
31:21We are talking billions of dollars in revenue.
31:23Pfizer alone is set to make between 59 and 61 billion in profits this year.
31:2815 billion of which would be from their COVID-19 vaccine alone.
31:32I'm sorry, I just hallucinated.
31:34What?
31:36There's nothing unusual about companies making money from a global medical breakthrough.
31:40But when the stakes are this high and the profits this big, it can start to raise questions.
31:46And in a moment already defined by fear and uncertainty, those questions can quickly turn into something else.
31:55As coronavirus spread and the death toll mounted, the fear and paranoia rose right along with it.
32:01And conspiracies started to pop up that suggested that maybe the vaccine wasn't a vaccine at all.
32:11Maybe it was about tracking the population and expanding government control.
32:15In that version of events, the pandemic itself wasn't an accident.
32:19It was the setup.
32:21How probable is such an idea?
32:24To find out, I'm on my way now to meet with somebody who found themselves in the center of that
32:29very conspiracy.
32:35Biohacker Emil Grafstra runs a medically safe RFID implant company using radio wave technology for wireless identification and authentication.
32:45I've got you at 11.53 here.
32:47I'll pay with tap.
32:52That's crazy.
32:53That is some cyborg .
32:55Did it light up under your skin?
32:57Yeah, I kind of forget where it's at.
32:59So when I use it for pass keys on my phone, as I get closer, it lights up.
33:03When did you start hearing about the connection between COVID and RFID?
33:08That started almost immediately.
33:10There was a company backed by Bill Gates manufacturing these syringes that had RFID in the syringe.
33:16And the purpose of that is to be able to track dosing and usage distribution like a parcel tracking.
33:22But tracking in terms of like real time locating on a map?
33:25No, that's not what it was doing.
33:26It was tracking the supply chain.
33:28But people were like, Bill Gates, microchips, you know, and it all fits together.
33:32It's almost hard to deny this stuff because it's so stupid or strange.
33:37It's really just the kind of combination of a misunderstanding about the technology and, you know, there were people trying
33:42to churn up this distrust.
33:44And so anything becomes possible.
33:46So now people who were already skeptical about being vaccinated started thinking it has some nefarious intent.
33:52And they'll kill millions, as they already have with their vaccines.
33:57Everywhere I go, everything is trying to connect to me, man, like Bluetooth connectivity.
34:00Does the COVID-19 vaccine make you magnetic?
34:03There's magnetic there.
34:06It really started to be a brewing ground for conspiracy.
34:10So I want to dig into this technology with you deeper.
34:13Yeah.
34:14And I don't think that doing it in a public restaurant is going to make anybody very comfortable.
34:18No.
34:19Do you mind taking a ride with me?
34:20Okay, sure.
34:21Let's do it.
34:29All right, man.
34:30Welcome to my little abode.
34:32All right.
34:33I've invited biohacker Emil Grabstra to show me his RFID implant toolkit.
34:39Now that we're in the final stages of our investigation, I want to test one of the most interesting and
34:44out there conspiracies
34:45and see for myself if a chip can really be injected into our bodies through a vaccine.
34:53So this is our full actual kit.
34:55This little needle is the actual cylindrical shaped implant.
34:59So that's not a little needle.
35:01I could make spaghetti with that.
35:02Yeah.
35:03Yeah, you could.
35:04Yeah.
35:04But this is the size that's required to fit the technology inside.
35:08Inversely, we have something that would be used for vaccination, right?
35:12So this little guy is what we all get with any vaccine that we can think of, really.
35:16There is nothing similar about those two.
35:18No comparison.
35:19That is a massive needle.
35:20Yeah, it has to accommodate that LED.
35:22So it's even bigger.
35:23I have to say this.
35:25Don't try this at home.
35:27Again, it's just under the skin, so it's really only a couple millimeters deep.
35:36Deposited.
35:36Deposited.
35:40And then we removed.
35:42Just like that.
35:43Where would that go on my hand?
35:45Between the index and thumb metacarpal bones.
35:47And the fascia.
35:48So you can feel there's a slight bump there.
35:51Wow.
35:53It's similar to this bump in my hand here.
35:55That's not right.
35:58I'm accustomed to working with fobs that are about this size.
36:01So what's in this chip is encryption and the authentication key that was previously in something like this.
36:08Both of these devices are just, therefore, authenticating that the user is, in fact, giving permission for this scan.
36:16It's not the same thing as a transmitter or any kind of active tracking.
36:20Right.
36:21The conspiracy around the COVID vaccine was that they may have been able to plant something into a person's body
36:27without their permission.
36:28Something that could be tracked 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
36:32Is that what this is?
36:33No. The range of these things, even your fobs and cards, which are very big in comparison, they have extremely
36:39limited range.
36:40And that's because there's no power source, right?
36:42They derive power from the magnetic field that the reader generates.
36:46So this thing only reacts when power is brought to it.
36:49Yep, exactly.
36:51Because of that, situations where governments like China are monitoring their entire populace, they didn't go for this because it's
36:57wholly impractical.
36:58You wouldn't set up readers every five feet that people have to go up to and actually present. It doesn't
37:03work.
37:03But also putting a thing in a person, they can just take it out.
37:06So how would you track a population?
37:08If you're a nefarious actor, you look at what's in the environment and give them a device that they keep
37:12charged on their own, which is their phone.
37:16How ironic it is that people who were reporting that they believe they were being tracked by the government were
37:22reporting that on social media using their phone, which is the best and easiest way for the government to track
37:28you, not some chip itself.
37:30Yeah.
37:30When I look at the evidence in front of me and I try to run it up against the theory
37:34that the COVID vaccine was really carrying some sort of microchip, you can literally see how scientifically difficult it would
37:41be to really do.
37:43Yes, absolutely.
37:47More than any other investigation that we have run together, this one has been an absolute emotional roller coaster.
37:56And because it's been so emotional, so controversial, we have to turn to a CIA tool and try to focus
38:04only on the facts.
38:07These are the four theories we have to explore in this matrix to try to define which is the most
38:13likely explanation and which are the least likely explanations for the origin of COVID.
38:20We track down some very credible experts.
38:23And when you consider the probability matrix, you have to consider the reliability of a source before you consider anything
38:29else.
38:30So let's jump in first with the idea that COVID-19 was somehow planned to track the population.
38:39We had a conversation with somebody who literally knows what it's like to plant microchips under their skin.
38:45And we quickly learned you can't hide a battery powered metal chip inside a vaccine.
38:53So we had to assign the idea as low probability.
38:59Which takes us to the idea that there was a Chinese bioweapon.
39:06We learned the purposeful release of a secret bioweapon works against all of China's known intentions.
39:12So we have one of the lowest possible likelihood scores.
39:20So let's get into our third theory, natural spillover.
39:25We have some very strong sources confirming that viruses do go through a natural evolutionary process that ultimately makes them
39:34highly infectious among human beings.
39:38But multiple experts explained to us that the virus had unique biochemistry that suggests that perhaps it didn't come from
39:46nature.
39:49While it is possible that there's a natural explanation for COVID, it may not be the most probable.
40:00Now we're fourth and final theory.
40:04An accidental lab leak.
40:07We learned of documentation that showed that this specific virus could be traced back to research at the Wuhan Institute
40:14of Virology.
40:16Does that mean that we know for certain it was a lab leak? No, but we have multiple strong sources
40:22with demonstrable evidence that point to this being a likely explanation.
40:27And so when we look at our probability matrix, this is the best assessment of where COVID-19 came from
40:34based on public evidence today.
40:41Nobody knows when or what the next pandemic will look like, but we all have a role to play in
40:48fighting it early and fighting the misinformation, the distrust and the lies that can come with during a global crisis.
40:56COVID may have began as a biological contagion, but what followed the disconnection, the doubt, the fear spread even faster
41:05than the virus itself.
41:08The good news is we're not powerless.
41:11The same tools we use to track the virus, evidence, transparency, curiosity, critical thinking, can also help us fight misinformation.
41:20Because maybe the real lesson behind COVID isn't just how viruses spread, but how important it is that the truth
41:27spreads faster.
Comments