evidence: Falsehoods about a new strain of the coronavirus spreading from China vary widely, from Facebook posts that take a patent out of context to conspiracy theories about Bill Gates. Many of the claims were shared by Facebook and Twitter users, and others were propagated on the fringe internet and notorious conspiracy websites. One falsehood was even shared by a 2020 U.S. Senate candidate. [...] But this claim takes unrelated events and financial connections out of context and morphs them into an inaccurate narrative about the coronavirus. [...] These claims are baseless — and they conflate COVID-19 with other strains of the illness. Our friends at Factcheck.org and Health Feedback debunked similar conspiracy theories.