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The claim: COVID-19 is part of ‘Operation Lockstep’ from ‘The Rockefeller Playbook’
Recent posts on Facebook about ‘Operation Lockstep’, a conspiracy theory of COVID-19, have gone viral.
The reports contain a page allegedly scanned from “The Rockefeller Playbook”, which outlines the three phases of public response to the pandemic.
Phase 1 contains ‘mild colds / flu’ which will exaggerate the ‘media’ to cause ‘mass paranoia and fear’ and inflation of COVID-19 case numbers. Phases 2 and 3 are characterized by weakened immune systems due to masks, social distance, exposure to 5G radiation and the armament of a more deadly virus due to the refusal to be vaccinated against COVID-19. The latter will lead to ‘anarchy from all sides’ between the vaccinated and vaccinated.
The claim was posted on the Facebook page for the exposure of Satanic World Government, the social media arm of Global Watchmen News. In response to a request for comment from the page, Laurie Swan TODAY sent a copy of a 2010 report from the Rockefeller Foundation, a private foundation founded in 1913 by the prominent Rockefeller family. The page has since been deleted.
Additional copies of the claim appeared on Facebook on January 2 and 9. Various posts it from January 4th, January 6th, January 9th and a January 11th message from user Travis Aaron – contains a picture of the cover of a 1989 book, “The New World Order,” written by conspiracy theorist A. Ralph Epperson.
Epperson mentions former New York government Nelson A. Rockefeller several times throughout the book, but there is no reference to COVID-19, “Operation Lockstep,” or a playbook, according to a scanned copy of “The New World Order “posted on Internet Archive.
USA TODAY contacted the other Facebook users for comment.
“The Rockefeller Playbook” dates back to July, when rumors began circulating on social media about a pandemic built by “global elites” to install a police state, according to Snopes. Local branch WUSA9, CBS News, also published an article dismantling Operation Lockstep.
USA TODAY has settled previous claims that COVID-19 describes as ‘fraud’.
More: Fact check: Vaccination helped eradicate smallpox
What is ‘Operation Lockstep’?
Although “The Rockefeller Playbook” does not exist, the 2010 Rockefeller Foundation’s planning report, “Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development”, contains a section called “Lock Step”.
The report describes a series of scenarios – including a pandemic – in which technology can be used to restore humanity.
“The Rockefeller Foundation believes that in order to understand the many ways in which technology will have an impact on international development in the future, we must first broaden and deepen our individual and collective understanding of the range of possibilities. the project on which it is based is one attempt to do so, ”reads an excerpt from the report.
The “Lock Step” section outlines a scenario of authoritarian control following a hypothetical novel flu pandemic similar to COVID-19.
“Lock Step” provides a “world of tighter government control from outside and more authoritarian leadership, with limited innovation and growing backlash from the citizen,” according to the report. In this world, 20% of the world population is infected with the new virus and 8 million people have died in seven months.
One excerpt is horribly reminiscent of the ongoing new coronavirus pandemic: ‘The pandemic has covered the planet – although an exorbitant number of people have died in Africa, Southeast Asia and Central America, where the virus has spread like wildfire in the absence of official childbirth records. ‘
In fact, an excessive number of COVID-19 deaths have occurred in North America (United States), Brazil (South America) and India (South Asia), according to the Johns Hopkins University & Medicine Coronavirus Resource Center. More than 720,000 of more than 1.9 million deaths occurred in these countries.
Another excerpt on the “mandatory wearing of face masks” and “body temperature controls at the entries in common areas such as train stations and supermarkets” is consistent with the current practices of distributing COVID-19.
But the new coronavirus is nowhere mentioned in the Rockefeller Foundation report.
While the “Lock Step” scenario describes a continuation of authoritarian policies after the pandemic “fades”, there is no reference to a conspiracy to introduce a new virus into the population if the majority of people resist it. to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
“Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development” provide no evidence of an elite conspiracy to incite global anarchy through COVID-19.
Our rating: false
We rate these claims as FALSE, based on our research. “The Rockefeller Playbook” and “Operation Lockstep” do not exist. The claim borrows scenarios from ‘Lock Step’, part of ‘Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development’, a report published by the Rockefeller Foundation. The report does not refer to COVID-19, a vaccine against the disease or setting up a police state during a pandemic.
Our sources for fact checking:
- Snopes, July 21, 2020: “Was the COVID-19 pandemic planned in Rockefeller’s ‘Operation Lockstep?’
- The Rockefeller Foundation, May 2010, “Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development”
- Johns Hopkins University & Medicine Coronavirus Resource Center, visited January 9: “COVID-19 Dashboard at the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU)”
- YouTube, visited on January 9: “Global Watchmen News”
- USA TODAY October 8, 2020: “Fact check: viral mail claiming COVID-19 to be fraudulent, does not mention evidence”
- WUSA9, 15 July 2020: “VERIFY: ‘Rockefeller document’ does not prove that coronavirus theory was planned in 2010”
- The Rockefeller Foundation, visiting on January 12: “About US”
- Ralph-Epperson.com, Visited January 14: “Ralph Epperson”
- Internet Archive, Consulted January 14: “The New World Order by Ralph A. Epperson”
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