STORY UPDATED: check for updates below.
Does House Resolution 6666 include billions of dollars to fund forced quarantining for Americans who test positive for COVID-19? No, that's not true: the bill earmarks funding to improve Americans' health through mobile testing units in medically underserved areas.
The claim that this bill is bad, based on its number, comes from a video posted on May 9, 2020, titled "HR6666: The Bill Of The Beast" (archived here) which opened:
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"The World Health Organization recommended forcibly removing family members from their homes and putting them in quarantine." Click below to watch the video on YouTube:
In fact, the bill requests funding to improve Americans' health through mobile testing units in medically underserved areas. Moreover, numbers on Senate and House bills are simply consecutive, spit out by a computer based on however many bills came before. Read the text of the bill -- which was introduced by Rep. Bobby Rush, a Democrat from Illinois, with support from representatives from Alabama, New York, New Jersey and seven other states -- here. In the video, Reese uses dramatic music and a doomsday voice to warn viewers that force will be used to take family members out of their homes by the WHO, that Microsoft CEO Bill Gates wants to tattoo and track everyone and that Big Pharma is behind the mobile testing program. In fact, the very opposite of his claim is shown on screen as a WHO official suggests isolating sick people in a "safe and dignified manner." Read the comprehensive WHO policy for quarantining sick family members where they can be cared for, at home or in a medical facility. An excerpt says: "In the context of the current COVID-19 outbreak, the global containment strategy includes rapid identification of laboratory-confirmed cases and their isolation and management either in a medical facility or at home." Under HR6666, which was introduced in the House on May 1, 2020, and sent to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, the newly funded mobile unit staff would perform contact tracing. Reese is also suspicious of contact tracing. But this is no new government invasion of privacy. Contact tracing is a long-used public health tool for finding out who a patient may have infected. It has been used to track sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis, to halt the spread. He says, "The amount of taxpayer dollars being asked for to trace the public and force quarantines is $100 billion" The bill is very clear about quarantines. There is no forcing, only supporting "at home and medical setting." The World Health Organization recommends that contacts of patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 be quarantined for 14 days from the last time they were exposed to the patient. However, it is a recommendation, not a rule. What categorizes a person as a contact? The bill defines that as a person who is involved in the following from two days before up to 14 days after the onset of symptoms in the patient:
WHO guidelines specify, "Quarantine should be implemented only as part of a comprehensive package of public health response and containment measures and, in accordance with Article 3 of the International Health Regulations (2005), be fully respectful of the dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms of persons." In the video, Reese also accuses Bill Gates of plots involving gross invasion of privacy that have already been disproved. These have nothing to do with bipartisan HR 6666. |
His video states that Gates wants to digitally tattoo everyone for tracking and surveillance. Because Microsoft was granted patent #060606 for a cryptocurrency (think bitcoin) surveillance system that could be connected to the human body, that does not mean we will be forced to be digitally tattooed.
Accusations against him for purported plans to put implants in people have been debunked by Lead Stories on April 23, 2020. But Reese also doesn't like Alex Azar of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He states:
Section 2 (of the bill) will allow Bill Gates loyalist Alex Azar to fund eligible entities to trace contacts and support quarantine of these contacts... who are these eligible entities? Anyone Alex Azar deems eligible.
Microsoft did file a patent application for "cryptocurrency system using body activity data" and was given the number W020200060606, but the application was actually filed in 2019 and does not involve implants. The patent application shows that a person would have a sensor in a "device" that would communicate the information to the "communication network" that would then share the information with the "cryptocurrency system." There is no mention of putting sensors into the body, and the drawing for the patent clearly shows the person separate from the sensor that would in the device. Millions of Americans already wear Smart Watches and Fitbits that record and transmit their activity or whereabouts.
For more on this, see Fact Check: Fact And Fiction About Microsoft Patent Application 'WO2020060606 - CRYPTOCURRENCY SYSTEM USING BODY ACTIVITY DATA'
Having attacked Gates, the video uses an ominous voice to proclaim, "Now enter HR 6666," as if the number 6666 allocated to a congressional bill requesting funding for COVID-19 tests, has some evil significance. It does not. The bill is designed to improve Americans' health through mobile testing units in medically underserved areas. According to the legal clearinghouse LexisNexis, legislation gets its ID number like this: "A bill is a legislative proposal brought before Congress in either the House or the Senate. Bills introduced in the House are assigned sequential numbers in the order in which they are introduced and are preceded by H.R. Bills introduced in the Senate are assigned sequential numbers preceded by S."
As if this were a negative, Reese says "This act is essentially setting up a contact tracing and quarantine program." Then he adds, "RUN BY BIG PHARMA."
Slowing the spread is the intent of the May 1, 2020 proposal. It says, "This Act may be cited as the "COVID-19 Testing, Reaching, And Contacting Everyone (TRACE) Act."
Despite what Reese claims, it in no way benefits "Big Pharma" because all the funds are earmarked for mobile testing units, salaries of health care workers and necessary protective equipment and testing kits. The sum requested for fiscal year 2020 is $100 billion.
Its priority is hot spots, which means a geographic area where the rate of infection with the COVID-19 virus exceeds the national average.
A Facebook entry from a poster on May 10 interprets HR 6666 as giving help only to those who have received the COVID-19 vaccine. This is false. Nowhere in the bill is the word vaccine mentioned, and according to both the CDC and the World Health Organization, there currently is not a vaccine for COVID-19.
Updates:
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2020-05-12T23:13:21Z 2020-05-12T23:13:21Z Updates 4pPT May 12, 2020 - revising headline and first paragraph to reflect HR 6666 does not fund forcef quarantine
