On April 3-5, a former member of the Parliament of Georgia and analyst Demur Giorkhelidze and Georgian (1, 2, 3) and Russian-speaking Facebook users (1, 2, 3) disseminated a claim that the German government admitted that there was no pandemic. The claim is based on an article from The People’s Voice, linked to the posts. The cover of the article also shows a photo in which German Chancellor Olaf Scholz writes that “Covid was a psychological operation to test compliance with mRNA and lockdown. There was no pandemic.”
The claim that the German government admitted that the pandemic did not actually happen is false. The post of the German Chancellor’s confession about the fakeness of the pandemic cannot be found. The source of this information is the publication The People’s Voice, which regularly publishes disinformation and conspiracies.
The article by The People’s Voice mentions that it was discovered in Germany that the pandemic did not happen and that it was invented to achieve other goals. This information is based on materials released by the Robert Koch Institute, the federal agency responsible for disease control and prevention in Germany. They became public after the online publication Multipolar sued the institute for access to documents related to the pandemic and published the materials in March 2024. The materials published by The People’s Voice clearly show that the reports about COVID-19 were fabricated by world governments and the mainstream media, there was no real threat to people’s health, and no need for a lockdown.
However, in fact, these claims are false. The Spanish fact-checking organization Maldita, after studying the documents, found that there is no evidence in them that would prove that there was no COVID-19 pandemic.
Based on the above-mentioned documents, similar misleading information was also spread on social networks (1, 2). Specific social media users manipulatively used specific points and tried to make it seem as if the introduction of the lockdown and the increase in the level of risk assessment related to the coronavirus pandemic were a result of the intervention of external actors. However, the Robert Koch Institute itself denied these claims, saying that the institute’s employees were involved in the case and that the decisions related to the pandemic were made after analyzing a lot of data.
For detailed information on the manipulative claims based on the documents released by Robert Koch, see the Myth Detector article:
- Information Regarding the Pandemic-related Documents in Germany Disseminated Without Context (in Georgian)
The People’s Voice article and cover story included a screenshot of a post on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s personal X (Twitter) account: “Covid was a psychological operation to test compliance with mRNA and lockdown. There was no pandemic.”
In fact, a similar post cannot be found on the Chancellor’s account and is most likely made up by the outlet. The People’s Voice has done similar forgeries many times in the past. For example, they have used similar tactics at least twice in their published material to support widespread disinformation about the World Economic Forum.
About the Source
Demur Giorkhelidze was a member of the Parliament of Georgia of the 5th convocation in 1999-2004 by party list from the election bloc “Union of Citizens of Georgia”. Recently, he has been appearing as a frequent guest on “Alt-Info” television programs founded by the pro-Russian “Conservative Movement.” Myth Detector has debunked a number of false claims disseminated by him.
The outlet “The People’s Voice” regularly publishes conspiracies and often spreads various false information. The publication was created in 2014 and was originally called YourNewsWire, rebranded to NewsPunch in 2017. NewsPunch published several false claims. Later on, the outlet changed its name once again and became The People’s Voice. According to Poynter.org, as early as 2018, about 80 false articles were detected on the site. Over the years, “Myth Detector” has debunked a number of falsehoods spread by the outlet.
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