SAVANTS PERPLEXED OVER CLAIM JADE PREVENTS COVID

Scientists have started sounding the alarm over a strange new theory circulating online about the novel coronavirus. Basically, it argues that the coronavirus may not really be all that novel. Instead, the thinking goes, it could be an ancient virus hidden in our DNA that does not directly make people sick—until shifts in Earth’s geomagnetic field create a cascade of effects that ultimately activate that latent genetic code and cause COVID-19, Mark Hay reported for The Daily Beast.

The wildest part: Thanks to its own unique geomagnetic properties, the theory maintains, “nephrite-jade amulets, a calcium ferromagnesium silicate, may prevent COVID-19.” In other words, you may be able to wear a physical piece of armor to ward off the deadly illness.

Unlike the bogus far-right conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and other diseases that have percolated over the years, this idea did not emerge from some secretive digital fringe. Instead, it originated in a peer-reviewed article in Science of the Total Environment (SOTE), a reputable academic journal, thanks in part, its authors claim, to funding “through grants from the US National Institutes of Health.” (The National Institutes of Health did not respond to a request for comment for this story.)

Its primary author, Moses Bility, is—or at least was—a respected assistant professor of infectious diseases and microbiology at the University of Pittsburgh. Suffice to say he has come under withering attack from others in his field and beyond over the article, and SOTE has temporarily withdrawn the paper—although the journal has not (yet) retracted it. “I am not sure who peer-reviewed it, but this paper should not have passed,” Elisabeth Bik, a microbiologist and scientific integrity watchdog, told The Daily Beast. She and other skeptical expert readers argue that the paper drastically mischaracterizes or misunderstands many of the diverse concepts and studies it draws upon, as well as many clinical observations on the nature of COVID-19.