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In a video posted to YouTube on Monday, a woman animatedly described an unsubstantiated secret plot by global elites like Bill Gates and Dr. Anthony Fauci to use the coronavirus pandemic to profit and grab political power. In the 26-minute video, the woman asserted how Dr. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leading voice on the coronavirus, had buried her research about how vaccines can damage people’s immune systems. It is those weakened immune systems, she declared, that have made people susceptible to illnesses like Covid-19. (Alba, 5/9)

[Judy Mikovits] has now accused the scientific establishment of conspiracy again. In a film called “Plandemic,” and in a recently published book that topped the Amazon bestsellers chart this week, she makes a bizarre and false claim: that the doctors and experts shaping public policy in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic have silenced dissenting voices and misled the public for sinister reasons. She falsely claims that wealthy people intentionally spread the virus to increase vaccination rates and that wearing face masks is harmful. The coronavirus-related theories Mikovits presented defy accepted science and wilt under scrutiny, according to dozens of experts who spoke up after “Plandemic” trended this week. (Shepherd, 5/8)

Aram Westergreen, a construction worker idled last month in the COVID-19 pandemic, filled out an online Washington state form recently to report a pawn shop open despite a ban on nonessential businesses. Westergreen lives in Tacoma, Wash., less than an hour from the nursing home where the first COVID-19 death in the United States was reported in late February. With more than 900 deaths statewide since, and a stay-at-home order in place since March 23, Westergreen, like many of his neighbors, has suffered from lost income, but regards social distancing as critical to slow the spread of the pathogen. (Read and Etehad, 5/10)

In recent weeks, Republicans have been angrily lashing out at the media, local and state officials and House Democratic leadership over the continued shutdown — and are now actively encouraging the fired-up protesters swarming state capitols across the country. “It’s ludicrous, it’s arbitrary and it’s absolutely unnecessary,” said Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.), whose state has been one of the earliest to lift coronavirus restrictions. “In some cases, there’s no evidence whatsoever that they eliminate the spread of Covid-19. It’s just abusive, dictatorial, tyrannical-type leadership.” (Zanona, 5/11)