Veteran explains why the conspiracy theory that COVID vaccines have trackers is completely bogus

As we were going through the thick of the pandemic last year, it was the thought of COVID-19 vaccines that gave hope to many of us. Thanks to scientists racing against the clock to develop an effective immunization against the deadly virus, today we have the opportunity to protect ourselves and our loved ones against it. And so it boggles my mind how some people can continue to refute the science laid bare before them and spread ridiculous conspiracy theories about the approved vaccines. Chances are, you've come across some of them on the internet in recent times, including the absolutely bogus claim that the vaccine shots contain super-advanced, micro trackers that the government uses to keep a tab on those who get vaccinated.

Afghanistan veteran Patrick Loller got so tired of anti-vaxxers spreading this misinformation that he decided to take a shot at pointing out the utter lack of logic behind their claims. Loller, who has 450k followers on TikTok, used his own experience from his time in Afghanistan to make a really convincing case in favor of common sense. "As an Afghanistan veteran, I cannot get over the ignorance of people thinking they put trackers in the vaccines," he says in the video.

"When I was in Afghanistan, we could barely find each other. We had Blue Force tracker computer units in every truck, we had dagger GPS units that we carried on a platoon level, and they never f***ing worked," Loller continued. "Our government has a military budget larger than the next seven countries COMBINED, but they can't find a way to reliably figure out where troops are in combat. But yeah, Chad, they definitely have a satellite network following you around to find out how long you spent at the Arby's."

"Gotta find out how long Brian's been at the Tasty Squeeze, way more important than figuring out where our f***ing combat troops are! When I was there, one of our companies nearly mortared another one of our companies because they couldn't figure out who they were! But yeah, they definitely took that technology that already isn't working, micro-sized it — micro-sized? Made it small, so they could stick 'em in regular Americans. Get over yourself," Loller concluded.

According to James Tabery, an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Utah who has written about the COVID-19 conspiracy theories, the microchip conspiracy theory probably came from misconstruing information surrounding the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and their heavy investment in worldwide COVID-19 vaccination efforts. "They've invested millions in vaccination efforts to improve public health around the world… Bill and Melinda Gates are heavily invested in vaccination efforts," Tabery told ABC4. "They awarded grants to researchers to find better ways to keep track of vaccination information and in particular, they were thinking about places like underdeveloped nations where you want to roll out vaccination operations but the electronic medical record infrastructure isn't really set up to keep track of all that."

"Logistical challenge: how do you keep track of who's been vaccinated when you don't have the electronic infrastructure to do that?" he added. Tabery explained that to address this issue, researchers at MIT looked into using an invisible dye to keep track of those who've been vaccinated. However, this technology is not a microchip and is more like an invisible tattoo. It would not allow people to be tracked and personal information would not be entered into a database. It has not been rolled out yet but if implemented, somewhere down the line someone could either shine a light or use a smartphone app to see if the ink is in your skin.

"You sort of mash those two things together and sprinkle some paranoia and you get Bill Gates wants to microchip everyone," said Tabery. He added that since millions of people have been vaccinated at this point if someone really wanted to test the microchip conspiracy theory, they could get a full-body scan.