Uri Geller bends the truth as he spreads conspiracy theory
Geller, who counts the prime minister’s wife, Sara Netanyahu, among his fans, posted on his Instagram account on Sunday night what he called ‘inside information’ about COVID-19
Uri Geller, Israel’s veteran illusionist/psychic/television personality, known for bending spoons with his mind, has just joined the ranks of conspiracy theorists circulating rumors about the origins of the COVID-19 virus.
Geller, who counts the prime minister’s wife, Sara Netanyahu, among his fans, posted on his Instagram account on Sunday night what he called “inside information” about coronavirus. He says that it was manufactured by China’s Ministry of State Security, which is responsible for counterintelligence, and that a person became infected accidentally while the virus was being delivered to Iran, which planned to use it for bacteriological warfare: “I wrote this to a group of scientists in the US,” he said, adding “...there is still controversy among American scientists whether the actual virus is derived from bats, snakes or created in a lab.”
Geller is far from the only adherent of this theory. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), said in an interview with Fox News in February that it was possible that the virus had originated in a high-security biochemical lab in Wuhan, the Chinese city at the center of the outbreak: “We don’t have evidence that this disease originated there, but because of China’s duplicity and dishonesty from the beginning, we need to at least ask the question to see what the evidence says, and China right now is not giving evidence on that question at all.”
The theory Geller propagates is one of several. Other theories include one widely circulated in Russia and other countries, that the virus was invented by the US so that pharmaceutical companies could profit by inventing and selling a vaccine.
Another is that Microsoft founder and former CEO Bill Gates created the virus for his own ends, a theory that has spread on the social media platform TikTok.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization, told reporters in February: “At WHO, we’re not just battling the virus, we’re also battling the trolls and conspiracy theorists that push misinformation and undermine the outbreak response.” Other WHO officials have dubbed the situation an “infodemic.”
While Geller does not provide any specifics about how he came by his “inside information,” he ends the post with some medically sound advice, exhorting fans to wash their hands, refrain from shaking hands and avoid large gatherings. The post concludes: “And pray that it will ebb away and a vaccine will be found to destroy it.”