---
title: Follow the science, Plandemic:COVID-19 messaging from officials and contrarians, 2020-2022
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/covid-messaging-2020-2022/
description: from 2020 to 2022, officials and their critics both issued confident claims that went further than the evidence of the day, borrowed authority from…
section: Case studies
---

![Illustration: a contemporary investigator's evidence wall of printed social-media posts, network diagrams and a pinned world map, in the same dossier style as the rest of the archive.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-contemporary-evidence-wall.jpg)

[Case studies](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/)

# Follow the science, Plandemic:COVID-19 messaging from officials and contrarians, 2020-2022

At a glance

From 2020 to 2022, officials and their critics both issued confident claims that went further than the evidence of the day, borrowed authority from credentials, and used labels to close questions…

- **When:** 2020
- **Actor:** U.S. federal officials and agencies…
- **Target:** The general public in the U.S., the U.K. and beyond, deciding whom to trust on masks, treatments,…
- **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Confidence:** **documented** Primary documents, court records, official disclosures
- **Techniques:** [Semantic hijacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/semantic-hijack/) [Manufactured consensus](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/manufactured-consensus/) [Motte and bailey](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/motte-and-bailey/) [Testimonial](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/testimonial/) [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/) [Glittering generalities](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/glittering-generalities/) [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/)
- **Regime:** [Trump administration](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/trump-administration/)

Full details

- **Actor:** U.S. federal officials and agencies (Surgeon General, CDC, FDA, the White House under two presidents), organisers and signatories of the February 2020 Lancet statement, platforms (Facebook/Meta, YouTube, Twitter), the Center for Countering Digital Hate; contrarian producers (Plandemic, America's Frontline Doctors, Died Suddenly), anti-5G activists; Wuhan police and municipal health authorities
- **Target:** The general public in the U.S., the U.K. and beyond, deciding whom to trust on masks, treatments, vaccines and the virus's origin

On this page

- [What happened](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/covid-messaging-2020-2022/#what-happened)
- [How it works](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/covid-messaging-2020-2022/#how-it-works)
- [Then and now](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/covid-messaging-2020-2022/#then-and-now)
- [Positions on the record](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/covid-messaging-2020-2022/#positions-on-the-record)
- [Same-method test](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/covid-messaging-2020-2022/#same-method-test)
- [How to spot it](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/covid-messaging-2020-2022/#how-to-spot-it)
- [Images](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/covid-messaging-2020-2022/#images)
- [Sources](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/covid-messaging-2020-2022/#sources)

On this page

**In one line:** from 2020 to 2022, officials and their critics both issued confident claims that went further than the evidence of the day, borrowed authority from credentials, and used labels to close questions; this page scores both with the same definitions, and says plainly which claims the record later showed to be false.

![Diagram: officials and contrarians run parallel tracks of overstatement, labelling and borrowed authority; corrections arrive later on each track; the origin question stays open](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/covid-messaging-2020-2022-diagram.svg)

Three related items are covered on other pages and only named here: the UK government's 2021 "Look him in the eyes" campaign, set beside a Second World War venereal-disease poster in [Then and now: fear in public-health messaging (US 1940s, UK 2021)](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/health-fear/); the "Chinese virus" label, set beside a Second World War poster in [Then and now: national and ethnic labels for an enemy or a disease (US 1942, US 2020)](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/ethnic-labels/); and Chinese state media's Fort Detrick counter-claim, set beside the Soviet AIDS-origin story of the 1980s in [Then and now: "the Americans made it" (Soviet AIDS story 1983, Chinese Fort Detrick claim 2020)](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/lab-origin-stories/).

## What happened

**Official and institutional messaging**

- **3 January 2020.** Wuhan police make Dr Li Wenliang sign a reprimand for "making false comments" that "severely disturbed the social order", after he warned colleagues about a SARS-like illness. On 19 March, after a National Supervisory Commission inquiry, police revoke it and apologise to his family.
- **19 February 2020.** *The Lancet* publishes a statement by 27 scientists "in support of the scientists, public health professionals, and medical professionals of China". It says: "We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin." The authors declare no competing interests. In November 2020, emails released through public-records requests to U.S. Right to Know show that Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, drafted it. He wanted it to "not be identifiable as coming from any one organization or person". He also advised Ralph Baric not to sign, so as to "maximize an independent voice". Baric agreed: "Otherwise it looks self-serving, and we lose impact." In June 2021 *The Lancet* publishes an addendum in which Daszak expands his disclosure, describing EcoHealth's work with Chinese institutions including the Wuhan Institute of Virology, some of it funded through U.S. federal grants.
- **29 February 2020.** Surgeon General Jerome Adams tweets: "Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!" He says masks are "NOT effective" for the general public and that buying them puts health workers at risk. On **3 April** the CDC recommends cloth face coverings in public settings. In June Anthony Fauci explains the early advice: "the critical issue was to save the masks for the people who really needed them because it was felt that there was a shortage of masks."
- **17 March 2020.** "The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2" (Andersen and others, *Nature Medicine*) states: "Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus" and "we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible." In July 2023 a House select subcommittee releases the authors' Slack messages from early 2020. In them Andersen writes that "accidental escape is in fact highly likely" and "not some fringe theory". At the 11 July 2023 hearing Andersen defends the paper's conclusions and calls the claim that it was orchestrated to cover up a lab origin "absurd and false".
- **February and 26 May 2021.** Facebook adds "COVID-19 is man-made or manufactured" to the "debunked" claims it removes. On 26 May, the day President Biden orders an intelligence review of the origin, it reverses: "in light of ongoing investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and in consultation with public health experts, we will no longer remove the claim."
- **24 March to 18 August 2021.** The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) reports that twelve people account for 65% of anti-vaccine content shared on Facebook and Twitter in its sample. On 15 July the White House press secretary repeats the figure from the podium. On 18 August Meta's Monika Bickert calls it a "faulty narrative". She says the report looked at 483 pieces of content from 30 groups over six weeks, and that the twelve account for about 0.05% of views of vaccine content on Facebook.
- **29 March 2021.** CDC Director Rochelle Walensky tells MSNBC: "Our data from the CDC today suggests that vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don't get sick." On 1 April a CDC spokesperson says she "spoke broadly" and that "the evidence isn't clear whether they can spread the virus to others."
- **13 April and 23 June 2021.** The FDA and CDC pause the Johnson & Johnson vaccine over a rare clotting syndrome (lifted 23 April). The CDC's advisers find a "likely association" between mRNA vaccines and myocarditis, mostly in young males, and say the benefits still outweigh the risks.
- **16 and 21 July, 5 August 2021.** Walensky: "This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated." President Biden: "You're not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations." PolitiFact and Poynter rate that an exaggeration. Walensky on CNN, 5 August: the vaccines "continue to work well for Delta, with regard to severe illness and death", "but what they can't do anymore is prevent transmission."
- **21 August 2021.** The FDA posts: "You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y'all. Stop it." It deletes the posts under a 2024 settlement with three doctors who had sued it.
- **16 December 2021.** Biden warns of "a winter of severe illness and death for the unvaccinated".
- **"Follow the science."** Biden campaigned on it in 2020. A Bloomberg editorial called it "just a slogan", and STAT reported in 2021 that experts said he had sometimes fallen short of it.

![CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, 2021](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/covid-messaging-2020-2022-walensky.jpg)

*CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, official portrait, 2021. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, public domain.*

**Contrarian messaging**

![President Trump at a coronavirus briefing, 26 March 2020, with Vice President Pence holding the "15 Days to Slow the Spread" guidance](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/covid-messaging-2020-2022-task-force-briefing.jpg)

*Coronavirus Task Force briefing, White House, 26 March 2020, five days after the hydroxychloroquine tweet. Vice President Pence holds the federal "15 Days to Slow the Spread" booklet. Official White House photo, public domain. The same podium carried both the federal guidance and the President's own contrarian claims.*

- **21 March 2020.** President Trump (a sitting president, grouped here with contrarian messaging for the claim's content rather than his office) tweets that hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin "have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine." The FDA grants an emergency authorisation on 28 March and revokes it on 15 June, finding the drug "unlikely to be effective". The RECOVERY trial (1,561 patients on hydroxychloroquine against 3,155 on usual care) finds no reduction in 28-day mortality.
- **April 2020.** Claims that 5G spreads or causes COVID-19 are followed by arson attacks on UK phone masts: 77 by early May, and 159 in 2020 according to Ofcom. Most were not 5G-enabled, and one mast served a Birmingham field hospital. The WHO states that viruses cannot travel on radio waves or mobile networks.
- **17 April 2020.** Trump tweets "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!", "LIBERATE MINNESOTA!" and "LIBERATE VIRGINIA", in support of protests against state orders.
- **4 May 2020.** *Plandemic*, a 26-minute video featuring Judy Mikovits, promises to "expose the scientific and political elite who run the scam that is our global health system." It is viewed more than eight million times before Facebook ("imminent harm"), YouTube and Vimeo remove it. *Science* and PolitiFact find its central claims false. These include that masks "activate your own virus", that Mikovits was jailed without charges, and her account of her career. Her 2009 XMRV paper was retracted by *Science* in 2011.
- **27 July 2020.** At a "White Coat Summit" on the Supreme Court steps, hosted and funded by Tea Party Patriots, doctors from the group America's Frontline Doctors speak. One of them, Stella Immanuel, tells viewers that hydroxychloroquine is a cure and "you don't need masks", and calls studies against the drug "fake science". The video reaches about 14 million Facebook views before removal. Trump retweets it, and Twitter restricts Donald Trump Jr.'s account for sharing it.
- **2021.** Posts cite raw counts from VAERS, the U.S. vaccine adverse-event reporting system, as vaccine deaths. VAERS states that reports may be "incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental and unverified" and cannot show causation. FactCheck.org and PolitiFact rate such claims false.
- **30 March 2022.** The TOGETHER trial (*NEJM*) finds early ivermectin did not reduce hospitalisation: 14.7% against 16.3% on placebo, a difference within chance.
- **21 November 2022.** *Died Suddenly* presents embalmers' clots and news clips of sudden deaths as evidence of vaccine harm and a depopulation plan. PolitiFact finds that it uses clips of people whose deaths were unrelated to COVID-19 or the vaccines. One featured embalmer told FactCheck.org: "I can't prove what this is."

**The origin record since.** In October 2021 the U.S. intelligence community's declassified assessment finds four agencies and the National Intelligence Council leaning natural origin (low confidence) and one, later identified as the FBI, leaning lab (moderate confidence). In February 2023 the Energy Department is reported to lean lab (low confidence). In January 2025 the CIA leans research-related (low confidence). In June 2025 the WHO's SAGO says the weight of available evidence suggests zoonotic spillover but that a lab leak cannot be ruled out without data China has not provided. In April 2025 the White House turns COVID.gov into "Lab Leak: The True Origins of COVID-19". **In the record, the origin question is unresolved.**

## How it works

- [Semantic hijacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/semantic-hijack/): in the Lancet statement and Facebook's February 2021 rule, "conspiracy theory" and "debunked" were stretched to cover a hypothesis that every U.S. intelligence agency, and later the WHO's advisers, called plausible. The stretch runs the other way too. *Died Suddenly* took a phrase describing any unexpected death and made it stand for vaccine harm, and Immanuel applied "fake science" to randomised trials. The mirror image came in 2025, when a White House page titled a hypothesis that its own agencies hold at low or moderate confidence "The True Origins".
- [Manufactured consensus](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/manufactured-consensus/): the Lancet statement was drafted by one interested party and designed, in Daszak's words, not to be "identifiable as coming from any one organization or person". Its signatories were real scientists who signed of their own accord. What was built was the appearance that they had arrived independently, with no competing interest declared until 2021. The White Coat Summit is not scored the same way because its sponsor, Tea Party Patriots, promoted and broadcast the event under its own name (see Sources); its doctors are scored under [Testimonial](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/testimonial/).
- [Motte and bailey](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/motte-and-bailey/) (official side, documented): the bold claim ("vaccinated people do not carry the virus", 29 March 2021) gave way to a retreat ("spoke broadly", 1 April). It was then restated from the presidential podium ("You're not going to get COVID", 21 July) and retreated again to the defensible core ("prevent severe illness and death... what they can't do anymore is prevent transmission", 5 August). The Delta variant changed the evidence in between, and the speakers were colleagues, not one person. On the contrarian side, the "just asking questions" retreat is widely alleged, but this page found no sourced three-step instance, so it is not scored.
- [Testimonial](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/testimonial/): white coats were the message at the "White Coat Summit". *Plandemic* rests on Mikovits's credentials, and *Died Suddenly* on embalmers. On the official side, the Lancet statement's 27 names and *Proximal Origin*'s authors were cited as settling the origin question at a point when the authors' own private messages, and the later agency assessments, show it was not settled.
- [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/): masks that "activate your own virus", 5G, and a depopulation film on one side; "a winter of severe illness and death for the unvaccinated" on the other. The scale differs. The official warning rested on hospitalisation data (over 97% of new COVID hospitalisations were among unvaccinated people, per the CDC in July 2021). The contrarian claims named here were found false. The method is the same: staged imminent harm and one offered protection.
- [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/): "Plandemic", "scam", "the Disinformation Dozen", and the FDA's "You are not a horse." Each label invited the audience to reject a group of people before weighing a claim.
- [Glittering generalities](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/glittering-generalities/): "follow the science" (a virtue word with no stated policy content), and on the other side "LIBERATE" (a presidential tweet) and "Free Ohio Now" (the rally pictured below).
- [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/): VAERS screenshots with the causation disclaimer cut off, and *Died Suddenly*'s unrelated death clips. On the other side, a sample of 483 posts from 30 groups became the "65%" line repeated at the White House, whose basis Meta disputed.

## Then and now

![A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers (1954)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/frank-statement-1954.png)

*[A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/frank-statement-1954/), Tobacco Industry Research Committee, 1954. Public domain.*

The 1954 Frank Statement spoke in the name of science for parties with a stake in the answer, and presented itself as a collective voice. The Lancet statement shares one feature: an interested organiser, with the interest undisclosed at the time. The differences are large and should be stated. A U.S. court later found the Frank Statement to be part of a decades-long effort to maintain doubt about a settled harm. No court or investigation has made any such finding about the Lancet statement, and the question it addressed remains open.

![Placard reading "We are woke to your PLANdemic. We do not consent to a Gates vaccine", Columbus, Ohio, 9 May 2020](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/covid-messaging-2020-2022-plandemic-sign.jpg)

*["We are woke to your PLANdemic" placard, Columbus, Ohio](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/plandemic-protest-sign-2020/). "Free Ohio Now" rally, Ohio Statehouse, 9 May 2020, five days after* Plandemic *appeared. Photo by Becker1999, CC BY 2.0, cropped by FRAME to the placard.*

![Hand-painted "Covid vaccine alters D.N.A. forever" on a crossing pole, Los Angeles, 2021](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/covid-messaging-2020-2022-dna-graffito.jpg)

*"Covid vaccine alters D.N.A. forever", Studio City, Los Angeles, September 2021. Photo by Cory Doctorow, CC BY-SA 2.0. Health authorities and fact-checkers state that mRNA vaccines do not alter human DNA.*

![Banner reading "Stay a jerk, Control the narrative, Ruin lives" on Whitehall, London, September 2020](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/covid-messaging-2020-2022-whitehall-anti-mask.jpg)

*A protest banner on Whitehall, London, 19 September 2020, rewriting the UK government's "Stay home, Protect the NHS, Save lives" slogan in the same yellow-and-green frame. Photo by Matt Brown, CC BY 2.0.*

![Hand-lettered "We support NNU nurses" sign on a car window, Los Angeles, April 2020](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/covid-messaging-2020-2022-nurses-car-rally.jpg)

*The other side of the street: a car-caravan sign supporting nurses at UCLA Medical Center, 13 April 2020. Photo by Marcywinograd, CC BY-SA 4.0.*

## Positions on the record

- **Officials' stated position:** early guidance followed the best evidence of the day and supply constraints, and was updated as evidence changed. The Delta variant changed what vaccines could do about transmission. Their warnings about unvaccinated risk rested on hospitalisation data.
- **Contrarians' stated position:** officials overstated certainty, suppressed legitimate questions (the lab-leak hypothesis is their leading example), and dismissed early treatments and vaccine harms.
- **What is documented:** the quotes and dates above; the Lancet emails and addendum; the *Proximal Origin* Slack release; the platform reversals; the FDA revocation and the RECOVERY and TOGETHER results; the CDC's own myocarditis and clotting findings; the fact-checks of *Plandemic*, *Died Suddenly* and VAERS misuse; and the mast attacks.
- **Shown false in the record:** 5G causing COVID-19; *Plandemic*'s specific claims listed above; "vaccinated people do not carry the virus" (withdrawn by the CDC itself); "You're not going to get COVID"; and hydroxychloroquine as a cure.
- **What is not shown:** where SARS-CoV-2 came from; that any official statement was a deliberate lie rather than an overstatement; and that the contrarian producers were coordinated with one another. This page does not rule on lockdowns, mandates or platform moderation policy.

## Same-method test

Swap the flags and the scores hold. A contrarian doctors' group that drafted a "spontaneous" open letter while hiding that its organiser had a financial link to the subject would be scored [Manufactured consensus](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/manufactured-consensus/), as the Lancet statement is. An official who said a drug "prevents transmission", withdrew it, and then heard the President say it again would be scored [Motte and bailey](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/motte-and-bailey/), whichever drug and whichever party. "Plandemic" and "Disinformation Dozen" are both labels that sort people before claims are checked.

## How to spot it

- Ask whether a confident claim is followed by a quieter correction, and whether the correction travelled as far as the claim.
- Check who organised a collective statement and what the signatories declared.
- For credentials, ask whether the expert's field matches the claim, and whether a trial exists.
- Before sharing a database count (VAERS, case tallies), read the database's own disclaimer.
- Watch for words that end a conversation ("conspiracy theory", "the science", "scam", "plandemic"), and ask what testable claim sits under each.

## Images

| Image | Source | Licence |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Mechanism diagram (above) | Drawn for FRAME from this page's sourced facts (`make_diagrams.py`) | CC BY 4.0, FRAME |
| *A Frank Statement* (1954) | FRAME gallery | Public domain |
| Rochelle Walensky, CDC Director (2021) | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rochelle_Walensky,_CDC_Director.jpg), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services | Public domain (U.S. government work) |
| Coronavirus Task Force briefing, 26 March 2020 | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:White_House_Press_Briefing_(49704641267).jpg), The White House (Flickr 49704641267) | Public domain (U.S. government work) |
| "PLANdemic" placard, Columbus, 9 May 2020 | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%27Free_Ohio_Now%27_(Columbus)_bIMG_0868_(49876163551).jpg), Becker1999 | CC BY 2.0 (cropped by FRAME) |
| "Covid vaccine alters D.N.A. forever", Los Angeles, 2021 | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Covid_Vaccine_Alters_DNA_Forever_graffito_with_%22Will_it_make_me_an_X-Men%22_addendum,_pole,_Studio_City,_Los_Angeles,_California,_USA_-_Flickr_-_gruntzooki.jpg), Cory Doctorow | CC BY-SA 2.0 |
| Whitehall banner, 19 September 2020 | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anti-mask_protesters_on_Whitehall_(50470378266).jpg), Matt Brown | CC BY 2.0 |
| Nurses car-rally sign, 13 April 2020 | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Car_Rally_Sign_to_Support_Nurses_April_13,_2020.jpg), Marcywinograd | CC BY-SA 4.0 |

### Image gaps

- **Official tweets and posts (Adams 29 Feb 2020, Trump 21 Mar and 17 Apr 2020, the FDA "horse" posts).** Works of U.S. federal officials acting officially are public domain, but x.com and fda.gov could not be reached from this environment. **Fillable.** The FDA posts were deleted under the 2024 settlement, so an archived capture would be needed.
- **CDC mask and vaccine campaign posters (public domain).** Wikimedia Commons rate-limited this environment before a CDC poster could be found and verified. **Fillable**, and a good next addition as an official-side gallery entry. Jerome Adams's public-domain portrait exists on Commons only at 180 px, too small to use.
- **The Lancet statement and addendum, and the *Proximal Origin* paper.** Copyrighted journal pages: cited, not hosted.
- **Plandemic, the America's Frontline Doctors video, *Died Suddenly*, and the MSNBC and CNN interview stills.** Copyrighted: not hosted. Not fillable.
- **Burned 5G masts, UK 2020.** No openly licensed photo was found. Fillable if one appears on Commons or Geograph.

## Sources

- [China Media Project, 19 March 2020: Li Wenliang reprimand and revocation](https://chinamediaproject.org/2020/03/19/reclaiming-doctor-li/); [HKFP, 19 March 2020](https://hongkongfp.com/2020/03/19/coronavirus-wuhan-police-inappropriately-punished-whistleblower-doctor-li-wenliang-chinese-govt-probe-concludes/)
- [The Lancet, 19 February 2020: Statement in support of the scientists... of China](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30418-9/fulltext)
- [The Lancet, June 2021: Addendum: competing interests and the origins of SARS-CoV-2](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01377-5/fulltext)
- [U.S. Right to Know, November 2020: EcoHealth Alliance orchestrated key scientists' statement](https://usrtk.org/covid-19-origins/ecohealth-alliance-orchestrated-key-scientists-statement-on-natural-origin-of-sars-cov-2/)
- [Andersen et al., "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2", Nature Medicine, 17 March 2020](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9)
- [House Select Subcommittee, July 2023: Proximal Origin report](https://oversight.house.gov/release/wenstrup-releases-alarming-new-report-on-proximal-origin-authors-nih-suppression-of-the-covid-19-lab-leak-hypothesis/); [Testimony of Kristian Andersen, 11 July 2023](https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Testimony-of-Dr.-Kristian-Andersen.pdf); [The Intercept, 12 July 2023](https://theintercept.com/2023/07/12/covid-documents-house-republicans/)
- [Bloomberg, 29 February 2020: Surgeon General urges people to stop buying masks](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-29/u-s-surgeon-general-urges-people-to-stop-buying-masks); [NPR, 3 April 2020: CDC recommends cloth face coverings](https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/03/826219824/president-trump-says-cdc-now-recommends-americans-wear-cloth-masks-in-public); [The Hill, June 2020: Fauci on early mask advice](https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/502890-fauci-why-the-public-wasnt-told-to-wear-masks/)
- [ABC News, 26 May 2021: Facebook lifts ban on man-made claims](https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/facebook-lifts-ban-posts-claiming-covid-19-man/story?id=77931433)
- [CCDH, 24 March 2021: The Disinformation Dozen](https://counterhate.com/research/the-disinformation-dozen/); [Meta, 18 August 2021: How We're Taking Action Against Vaccine Misinformation Superspreaders](https://about.fb.com/news/2021/08/taking-action-against-vaccine-misinformation-superspreaders/); [Reason, 15 July 2021: Psaki briefing](https://reason.com/2021/07/15/covid-19-vaccines-misinformation-jen-psaki-white-house-biden/)
- [The Hill, April 2021: CDC reverses Walensky statement](https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/546234-cdc-reverses-statement-by-director-that-vaccinated-people-are-no/); [CNN fact check, 21 May 2021](https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/21/politics/walensky-comments-cdc-guidance-fact-check)
- [CDC/FDA joint statement on J&J, 13 April 2021](https://archive.cdc.gov/www_cdc_gov/media/releases/2021/s0413-JJ-vaccine.html); [ACIP minutes, 23 June 2021](https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/157583/cdc_157583_DS1.pdf)
- [White House briefing, 16 July 2021](https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/07/16/press-briefing-by-white-house-covid-19-response-team-and-public-health-officials-45); [PolitiFact, 22 July 2021: Biden exaggerates efficacy](https://politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jul/22/joe-biden/biden-exaggerates-efficacy-covid-19-vaccines/); [Poynter, July 2021](https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2021/president-biden-exaggerated-the-effectiveness-of-covid-19-vaccines-during-a-cnn-town-hall/); [CNN, 5 August 2021: Walensky on transmission](https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/05/health/us-coronavirus-thursday/index.html); [CNN, 16 December 2021: Biden winter warning](https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/16/politics/joe-biden-warning-winter)
- [FDLI, May 2024: Apter v. HHS settlement](https://www.fdli.org/2024/05/apter-v-department-of-health-and-human-services/)
- [STAT, 1 September 2021: Biden pledged to follow the science](https://www.statnews.com/2021/09/01/biden-pledged-follow-the-science-but-hes-fallen-short/)
- [Trump on X, 21 March 2020](https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1241367239900778501); [FDA letter revoking the hydroxychloroquine EUA, 15 June 2020](https://www.fda.gov/media/138945/download); [RECOVERY Collaborative Group, NEJM 2020](https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2022926)
- [WHO: COVID-19 mythbusters (5G)](https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/myth-busters); [CDC: Myths and facts about COVID-19 vaccines (DNA)](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/facts.html)
- [RCR Wireless, 7 May 2020: 77 UK masts](https://rcrwireless.com/20200507/network-infrastructure/5g-covid-conspiracy-theory-claims-77-uk-phone-masts); [Ofcom FOI: 5G phone mast attacks](https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/about-ofcom/foi/2023/march/5g-phone-mast-attacks.pdf?v=329307); [Mobile World Live: attacks cost 170,000 hours](https://www.mobileworldlive.com/featured-content/home-banner/mast-attacks-cost-uk-operators-170000-hours/); [NBC News, April 2020](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/5g-cell-towers-torched-u-k-amid-bogus-coronavirus-theories-n1177361)
- [Al Jazeera, 17 April 2020: LIBERATE tweets](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/4/17/liberate-trump-tweets-support-for-anti-lockdown-protests)
- [Science, 8 May 2020: Fact-checking Judy Mikovits](https://www.science.org/content/article/fact-checking-judy-mikovits-controversial-virologist-attacking-anthony-fauci-viral); [PolitiFact, 8 May 2020: Fact-checking Plandemic](https://politifact.com/article/2020/may/08/fact-checking-plandemic-documentary-full-false-con/); [MIT Technology Review, 7 May 2020: eight million views](https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/05/07/1001469/facebook-youtube-plandemic-covid-misinformation); [Washington Post, 7 May 2020: removals](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/07/plandemic-youtube-facebook-vimeo-remove/)
- [FactCheck.org, 28 July 2020: doctor falsely touts hydroxychloroquine](https://www.factcheck.org/2020/07/in-viral-video-doctor-falsely-touts-hydroxychloroquine-as-covid-19-cure); [Tea Party Patriots: America's Frontline Doctors Summit](https://www.teapartypatriots.org/live-broadcasts/americas-frontline-doctors-summit/); [CNN, 28 July 2020: platforms remove video](https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/28/tech/facebook-youtube-coronavirus); [TechCrunch, 28 July 2020: Trump Jr. account restricted](https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/28/twitter-donald-trump-jr-frontline-doctors-viral-video-misinformation/)
- [FactCheck.org, March 2021: viral posts misuse VAERS data](https://www.factcheck.org/2021/03/scicheck-viral-posts-misuse-vaers-data-to-make-false-claims-about-covid-19-vaccines/); [PolitiFact, 9 August 2021](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/aug/09/tiktok-posts/no-truth-vaers-system-shows-6000-died-because-covi/)
- [Reis et al., TOGETHER trial, NEJM 2022](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2115869)
- [FactCheck.org, December 2022: Died Suddenly](https://www.factcheck.org/2022/12/scicheck-died-suddenly-pushes-bogus-depopulation-theory/); [PolitiFact, 29 November 2022](https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/nov/29/died-suddenly-repeats-debunked-covid-19-vaccine-cl/)
- [ODNI, declassified assessment on COVID-19 origins (2021)](https://www.odni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Declassified-Assessment-on-COVID-19-Origins.pdf); [CNN, 28 February 2023: Wray on FBI assessment and the Energy Department](https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/28/politics/wray-fbi-covid-origins-lab-china/index.html); [CBS News, January 2025: CIA assessment](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cia-covid-likely-originated-lab-low-confidence-assessment/); [WHO, 27 June 2025: SAGO report](https://www.who.int/news/item/27-06-2025-who-scientific-advisory-group-issues-report-on-origins-of-covid-19); [STAT, 18 April 2025: COVID.gov lab-leak page](https://www.statnews.com/2025/04/18/covid-lab-leak-theory-trump-replaces-pandemic-guidance-website-with-disputed-claims-alleged-coverup/)