At the time when the world is battling against the Coronavirus, which has killed over 274,000 people and infected over 3.9 million individuals, a 26-minute video called "Plandemic" became viral on social media platforms. This video claims to represent a view of COVID-19 that differs from what we are told by the officials.
Even though social media platforms have been trying to remove the video, it has been viewed millions of times on YouTube via links that are replaced as quickly as the authorities can remove them for violating its policy against "COVID-19 misinformation."
The controversial Plandemic video and Judy Mikovits
In the video, the filmmaker Mikki Willis conducts an interview with Judy Mikovits, who he addressed as "one of the most accomplished scientists of her generation." Mikovits is known for her role in a pair of scientific controversies that includes a paper she co-authored in 2009 and was published in the journal Science, while the other involves allegations that she stole lab notebooks as well as a computer and proprietary data from her former employer.
In her 2009 paper, she tied chronic fatigue syndrome to a retrovirus called XMRV to offer potential hope for future treatment to patients and without any evidence she started making links between XMRV and other disorders like autism. In the recent Plandemic video Willis says her paper "sent shock waves through the scientific community, as it revealed the common use of animal and human fetal tissues were unleashing devastating plagues of chronic diseases."
In the viral video she can be seen claiming that after the lab property stealing incident, she was "held in jail without charges. I was called a 'fugitive from justice,' " and added that "No warrant. They literally drug me out of the house. Our neighbours are looking at what's going on here."
But as per the Chicago Tribune, Mikovits was caught by police in California as a fugitive on a warrant issued by police from the University of Nevada, Reno. However, she claimed in the "Plandemic" video that the stolen properties were "planted" at her house.
Claims by Mikovits in 'Plandemic' video
In the "Plandemic" video, her claims concern perceived professional conflicts that Mikovits attributes to various high-profile personalities who have become more prominent recently due to the COVID-19 pandemic. These names include the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr Anthony Fauci.
In a statement by the National Institutes of Health, it was stated that NIH and NIAID are "Focused on critical research aimed at ending the COVID-19 pandemic and preventing further deaths. We are not engaging in tactics by some seeking to derail our efforts."
As per an article by Snopes which was published in 2018, Mikovits claimed that Fauci sent an email that "threatened her with arrest if she visited the National Institutes of Health to participate in a study to validate her chronic fatigue research."
Fauci later told the website that "I have no idea what she is talking about. I can categorically state that I have never sent such an e-mail. I would never make such a statement in an e-mail that anyone 'would be immediately arrested' if they stepped foot on NIH property."
The lab theory
When Mikovits is asked whether she believes the novel Coronavirus came out of a lab in the Plandemic video, she said:
I wouldn't use the word 'created.' But you can't say 'naturally occurring' if it was by way of the laboratory.
It's very clear this virus was manipulated, this family of viruses was manipulated and studied in a laboratory, where the animals were taken into the laboratory, and this is what was released, whether deliberate or not.
She also mentioned that the alleged lab release took place "between" the North Carolina laboratories and the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick in Maryland, and China's Wuhan Institute of Virology. But it should be noted that there is no evidence to support her claim.
The Plandemic video also points to US cooperation with and funding the Wuhan lab but implies by way of a hint that the link is sinister in nature rather than standard international cooperation.
As per Mikovits, it is not possible for the new Coronavirus to have evolved from the original SARS virus, stating that "would take it up to 800 years to occur." This statement contradicts the fact that viruses are well-known to evolve rapidly, along with the seasonal flu, for instance, the change happens so quickly that a new vaccine is required every year.
In the same video she also claimed that when she was at the Fort Detrick's USAMRIID in 1999, her job "was to teach Ebola how to infect human cells without killing them." She stated that the virus "couldn't infect human cells until we took it into the laboratories and taught [it]."
Here it should be noted that even though there is no way of verifying her claims to work in the lab, Mikovits' research was aimed at getting Ebola to infect human cells, she was behind the curve — by decades, says NPR. As per the early reports, the first Ebola outbreak occurred in 1976 in central Africa, and till 1999 there were several such outbreaks which killed hundreds of people. It shows that Ebola was able to infect humans long before 1999.
A few people described in the Plandemic video as doctors are seen questioning the guidelines by the US put out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on social distancing as well as other measures. Two people in the video identified as California urgent care clinic doctors called last month for an end to stay-at-home orders.
