5G and Covid-19: Claims of any links 'are simply not true'

MyBroadband's Jan Vermeulen: 'These con artists slap you with all kinds of tech terms to make the story believable'.

Social media is awash with reports that 5G has caused the coronavirus outbreak or, at the very least, is linked to the pandemic.

This week Health Minister Zweli Mkhize dismissed as fake news, the claims that the 5G network roll-out is linked to Covid-19 infections.

Kieno Kammies chats to MyBroadband editor-at-large Jan Vermeulen, who describes those spreading these stories as "con artists".

What these con artists do is they create a story to make it look super-legitimate. They over-use jargon, they slap you with all kinds of tech terms... so they make the story quite believable.

Jan Vermeulen, Editor-at-large - MyBroadband

Vermeulen says claims that allegedly higher frequencies create the virus or cause Covid-19-like symptoms, are simply not true and can be dismissed "out of hand".

Because, mainly, 5G runs at the exact same frequency at the moment as 4G.

Jan Vermeulen, Editor-at-large - MyBroadband

There was a lot of noise around 5G running at higher frequencies and the industry itself can actually be blamed for that because they were trying to associate 5G with what they call millimetre wave, for various commercial reasons. And now it's coming back to bite them a little bit.

Jan Vermeulen, Editor-at-large - MyBroadband

It's about the transmission power of the signal...

Jan Vermeulen, Editor-at-large - MyBroadband

Listen to the 5G discussion and an update on repairs to the undersea internet cable (skip to 07:18):

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