What was claimed
All of the Covid-19 variants have planned release dates.
Our verdict
They don’t. These claims come from a document that seems to be fake that has been circulating since July and been debunked numerous times.
Covid variants weren’t planned
13 August 2021
A video claims the different Covid variants have been planned and correspond with stages of sleep hypnosis.
The video shows a table with letters of the Greek alphabet under the column “Cepa/variante” (strain/variant) alongside a column titled “Lanzamiento” (launch) filled with dates, some in the future, suggesting each variant has been planned.
The woman in the video says the table is “Exhibit A” for why “All this stuff is made up”.
The website hosting the video states “The variants are fake. Here is a list of them and when they are to be announced to the public.”
The video also shows another version of the same table, featuring logos for the World Health Organisation, the World Economic Forum, Johns Hopkins University and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
There is no evidence to suggest that variants have release dates or are being intentionally released.
We’ve recently checked a similar claim in another video. The WHO and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation told Full Fact the document had nothing to do with them and a fact check by Reuters confirmed the same thing from the World Economic Forum. Johns Hopkins has not responded to Full Fact’s enquiry at the time of writing.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because this document seems to be a fake and the variants weren’t planned.