Recent Facebook postings concerning “Operation Lockstep,” a conspiracy theory involving COVID-19, have gone popular.

The entries include a page from “The Rockefeller Playbook” detailing the three stages of public reaction to a pandemic.

Phase 1 involves “mild cold/flu” cases that will be exaggerated by the “media” to create “mass hysteria and dread” and inflate COVID-19 case statistics. 

Compromised immune systems characterize phases 2 and 3 due to masks, social isolation, exposure to 5G radiation, and the weaponization of a more lethal virus due to widespread refusal to get COVID-19 vaccination. This latter scenario will result in “anarchy from all sides” between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals.

The assertion was made on the Facebook page for Exposing Satanic World Government, Global Watchmen News’ social media arm. Laurie Swan emailed USA TODAY a copy of a 2010 study released by the Rockefeller Nonprofit, a private foundation created in 1913 by the wealthy Rockefeller family. The message has subsequently been deleted from the page.

On Jan. 2 and 9, different versions of the allegation emerged on Facebook. Several entries from Jan. 4, Jan. 6, Jan. 9, and a Jan. 11 post from user Travis Aaron feature an image of A’s cover. Ralph Epperson’s 1989 book, “The New World Order.”

Epperson makes multiple references to former New York Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller throughout the book; however, there is no mention of COVID-19, “Operation Lockstep,” or a playbook, according to an Internet Archive scan of “The New World Order.”

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USA TODAY has sought reaction from the other Facebook users.

“The Rockefeller Playbook” stretches back to July when claims about a pandemic concocted by “global elites” to create a police state started to surface on social media, according to Snopes. Additionally, WUSA9, a local CBS News station, produced a report dissecting “Operation Lockstep.”

What is ‘Operation Lockstep’?

While there is no such thing as “The Rockefeller Playbook,” the Rockefeller Foundation’s 2010 planning report, “Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development,” has a section titled “Lock Step.”

The research discusses a variety of situations — including a pandemic — in which technology may be employed to aid in humanity’s restoration.

“To comprehend the many ways in which technology will affect international development in the future, the Rockefeller Foundation thinks that we must first widen and deepen our individual and societal awareness of the spectrum of possibilities. 

This report, as well as the project on which it is based, are one effort at doing so, “reads a section of the report.

The “Lock Step” section describes an authoritarian control scenario after a unique influenza pandemic comparable to COVID-19.

According to the research, “Lock Step” predicts a “future of tighter top-down government control and increasingly authoritarian leadership, with restricted innovation and escalating public resistance.” In this universe, 20% of the world’s population was infected with the unique virus, which claimed 8 million lives in seven months.

One passage is uncannily similar to the current new coronavirus pandemic: “The epidemic covered the globe — yet a disproportionate number of people perished in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Central America, where the virus spread like wildfire in the lack of government containment methods.”

According to the Johns Hopkins University & Medicine Covid Resource Center, a disproportionate number of fatalities with Corona have occurred in North America, Brazil, and India. These nations accounted for about 720,000 of them over 1.9 million fatalities.

Another portion on “mandated face mask use” and “body temperature checks at the entrances to common locations such as railway stations and supermarkets” matches current efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19.

However, the study by the Rockefeller Foundation makes no mention of the new coronavirus.

While the “Lock Step” scenario portrays the continuance of authoritarian measures after the epidemic “fades,” there is no mention of a scheme to introduce a new virus into the population if a majority of people refuse to get COVID-19 vaccinations, as the allegations suggested.

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“Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development” makes no case for an elite plot to instigate global anarchy through COVID-19.

Our Ratings

Based on our study, we classify these assertions as FALSE. There is no such thing as “The Rockefeller Playbook” or “Operation Lockstep.” The allegation is based on scenarios from “Lock Step,” a portion of the Rockefeller Foundation’s study “Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development.” 

The study includes no mention of COVID-19, a pandemic vaccine, or preparations to establish a police state in the event of a pandemic.