Claim: COVID-19 vaccines contain microchips
Source: WhatsApp Video
Verdict: FALSE
Researched by Gifty Tracy Aminu
A 2 minutes 10 seconds long video showing 4 people who claim the spot of their COVID-19 injection now reacts positively to magnetic objects is being widely shared on WhatsApp.
The video which has “TimTruth.com” embossed on the top right-hand corner also comes with a subtitle that claims, “more people catching on to their jabs being magnetic” and questions whether recipients of COVID-19 vaccines are being “microchipped.”
A voice-over narration of what was captured encourages the public to widely share the video so it could be independently investigated. “People are finding that they can put a magnet at where they got vaccinated and it will stick. I found eleven examples of this. I am scouring the internet; I found these eleven examples and I wanted to put together an ultimate compilation. So, check this out.” The person partly said.
The video showed multiple persons sticking some objects to where they claimed to have received their jabs and according to one of them who received the Pfizer vaccine, the magnetic reaction is true.
Fact-check
Experts at Meedan’s Health Desk, a group of public health scientists working to tackle medical misinformation online, said “the vaccine is not known to contain any metals or cause any response to magnetic fields. Only certain metals can trigger magnetic reactions, and the vaccine does not contain any metals at all. That means it can’t cause a magnetic response when it’s injected.”
The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine’s list of ingredients includes mRNA, lipids, potassium chloride, monobasic potassium phosphate, sodium chloride, dibasic sodium phosphate dihydrate, and sucrose.
“The amount of metal that would need to be in a vaccine for it to attract a magnet is much more substantial than the amounts that could be present in a vaccine’s small dose.” Experts at Meedan’s Health Desk emphasized.
“None of the COVID-19 vaccines contain software or microchips. They cannot track people”, the Department of health-Australia has stated.
According to the State of Indiana, USA: “the vaccines do not contain microchips or any other sort of device. It is impossible for a microchip to be placed in a vaccine.”
Other credible fact-checkers including the Reuters Fact Check, US TODAY Fact Check and Australia Associated Press FactCheck have flagged similar claims as FALSE.
Verdict
The claim that the COVID-19 vaccines contain microchips is FALSE.
