Academician's comments misconstrued to falsely claim WEF will use water for vaccination

What is the claim?

A post on social media claims that the World Economic Forum (WEF) is trying to inject COVID-19 vaccine into people through water. The post includes a video that shows Mariana Mazzucato, a University College London (UCL) professor, talking about how the approach to combat COVID-19 has also highlighted the need for a global approach to solve water issues. The phrases "they are determined to depopulate" and "they want to jab our water now" have been overlaid on the video. The post on X (formerly Twitter) read, "The WEF wants to vaccinate you through your water now." The post garnered over 8,17,400 views and more than 11,000 likes at the time of publishing. Other posts also made similar claims while sharing the video. The archive post can be found here and here.

Screengrabs of the claims made online. 
(Source: X/Altered by Logically Facts)

However, Mazzucato's statements have been misconstrued and shared with incorrect claims. 

What did we find? 

We came across the extended version of the viral video on WEF's official YouTube channel. The video was shared on August 24, 2022, and is titled "Press Conference: The New Economics of Water - Launch of Global Commission | Davos | #WEF22." The description details that the conference marked the official launch of a two-year "initiative to transform the economics of water" and how the initiative will reshape "how we talk about, value, and manage water in the rest of the 21st century." 

YouTube video of the conference

The video refers to the "Global Commission on the Economics of Water," an initiative launched in May 2022, aimed at redefining how water is valued and governed. The commission has been convened by the Netherlands and facilitated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). 

Around 15:45 minutes into the video, Mazzucato stresses the importance of the initiative by giving the example of the COVID-19 pandemic. She says, "We are all only as healthy as our neighbor is on our street, and our city, and our region in our nation and globally. Did we solve that, like, did we actually manage to vaccinate everyone in the world? No, so highlighting water as a global commons, and what it means to work together and see it both at a global commons perspective and the self-interest perspective, cause it does have that parallel. It is not only important because we haven't managed to solve those problems which had similar attributes. (sic)" 

She further explains that every child understands the importance of water, while climate change is somewhat abstract. "When you're playing football, and you're thirsty, you need water, so there's also something about really getting citizen engagement around this."

In the video, Mazzucato says that a global approach similar to the one taken to combat the COVID-19 pandemic is required to eradicate inequity of access and ensuing water-related conflicts. She makes no statement about "WEF vaccinating people through the water." Her comments on the accessibility of water while drawing parallels with COVID-19 have been misinterpreted. 

This video has been linked to the conspiracy theories of the New World Order (NWO) and The Great Reset, which falsely states that organizations like WEF are trying to "depopulate the earth," "control people," and are planning to drag humans into totalitarian dystopia. 

The verdict

Mazzucato's statement on the need for a global approach towards fighting water conflicts, on the lines of steps taken to combat COVID-19, has been taken out of context and misconstrued to claim that "WEF will vaccinate people through water." The claims are linked to baseless conspiracy theories. Therefore, we mark the claim false.