Skip to main content

No, panelist did not propose adding COVID-19 vaccines to water supply | Fact check

Chris Mueller   Paste BN

The claim: Speaker at WEF conference proposed adding COVID-19 vaccines to water supply

An Aug. 22 Facebook video (direct link, archive link) shows a woman talking about the COVID-19 pandemic and global access to water in front of a backdrop covered with the World Economic Forum's logo.

The video's caption shows a syringe emoji and then reads, "In our ... water supply. Only God can help us now."

The video was shared more than 2,000 times in nine days.

Follow us on Facebook! Like our page to get updates throughout the day on our latest debunks

Our rating: False

The woman speaking in the video never proposes adding COVID-19 vaccines to the water supply. The video excludes comments from another speaker that clarify they're both talking about water equity.

Video shows discussion about equal access to clean water

The video shows a brief clip of a press conference held May 25, 2022, in Davos, Switzerland, for the launch of a new Global Commission on the Economics of Water. The woman speaking is Mariana Mazzucato, an economics professor at University College London and one of the commission's co-chairs.

Mazzucato, though, was not proposing to add COVID-19 vaccines to the water supply. A video of the press conference shows she was expanding on a statement about water equity made by Tharman Shanmugaratnam, a former Singapore senior minister who is also one of the commission's co-chairs.

Shanmugaratnam, who is now running for president in Singapore, said access to clean water is a "global commons" issue and compared it to efforts to address climate change.

"If we don't solve those equity problems, we're all going to be affected," he said.

Fact check: Headlines misused to wrongly imply vaccines are killing white people

Mazzucato then interjects, "That’s also, of course, true with COVID, right? We are all only as healthy as our neighbor is on our street, in our city, in our region, in our nation and globally. Did we solve that? Like, did we actually manage to vaccinate everyone in the world? No."

She also describes access to clean water as a "global commons" issue, and explains her belief that the need for water is more understood globally than other issues.

"Every kid knows how important it is to have water," she said. "When you’re playing football and you’re thirsty, you need water. So, there’s also something about really getting citizen engagement around this and really, in some ways, experimenting with this notion of the common good."

At no point does Mazzucato, or any other speaker, call for putting COVID-19 vaccines in the water supply.

The Global Commission on the Economics of Water's website says its purpose "is to make a significant and ambitious contribution to the global effort to spur change in the way societies govern, use and value water."

“The Global Commission on the Economics of Water is an independent body with no affiliation to the World Economic Forum, and notes that these comments have been taken out of context," the commission said in a statement provided to Paste BN.

Paste BN reached out to the social media user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

PolitiFact and Reuters also debunked the claim.

Our fact-check sources:

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or e-newspaper here.

Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.

Facebook Twitter Email