Corona Daily 072: A Chip In Your Shoulder

On 7 May, a group of Columbia University engineers published a paper about a microchip designed by them. This microchip can sit inside the tip of a needle. That photo with accompanying captions like “I am not getting chipped by the government”, “Make sure to get your vaccine!!” “Now you know why the magnet sticks” went viral on Facebook. A “magnet challenge” competition alleged that a strong magnet will stick to the arm where the covid-19 vaccine was injected.

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James Heathers is the Chief Scientific Officer of a data company making wearable devices. He holds a doctorate in physiological-signal methodology. For the last fifteen years, he designs and sticks tech devices on or in people. Yesterday, in the Atlantic, he analysed the chip in the shoulder hypothesis.

First, he says, the syringe filling operation is visible to anyone who cares to watch it. Empty syringes are filled from vials, six shots per vial drawn out for Pfizer. Nurses fill the syringes; other nurses take the trays of prefilled syringes to tables, another nurse administers the jab. Pfizer syringes are Monojects (maker Cardinal Health). This needle snaps after a single use. To avoid injuries to nurses.

The Monoject needle is narrow, 25 gauge, its diameter about one quarter millimeter. Bigger needles, 16-gauge, are used for blood donation. Smaller, 30-gauge for injecting insulin. The bigger the gauge, smaller the needle.

The needle’s length is 1.5 inches, to make sure that on big arms, it can reach the muscle through skin and subcutaneous fat. Other than the nurse injecting, there is no human contact. No hugs, no handshakes. Everyone is masked. Little opportunity for micro-chipping at the vaccination center.

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The chip with 5G functionality is ruled out. The size of a penny, it can never fit inside a needle.

If some evil-schemer, whether named Bill or otherwise, wants to use a real tiny microchip, and inject it into billions of arms, he might consider pre-filling the syringes, not the vaccine vials, with the microchips.

Now there is a problem. If a vaccine liquid in a vial has six microchips, it is near impossible to draw it into six syringes so as to have one chip in each. Dr Heathers has calculated the vial must contain 26 chips to improve the chances of each person getting at least one chip in the arm. The evil Bill will have a real problem dealing with people with several microchips inside them.

The only possibility, Heathers says, would be to preload the tiniest microchip into the barrel of each syringe, and then hope it ejects itself when injected into the arm.

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Assuming that is done, the system needs to be somehow powered. Microchips of that size can’t have in-built batteries; an external source must power them. This requires a pretty hefty energy source very close to the injection site. Maintaining secrecy of the microchipping operation would not be easy.  

The other technical issue is how to get the data off the chip. A microchip or an RFID tag can function only if it can communicate through an inch of muscle, fat and skin. A muscle is a bag of fluid, known to obstruct radio signals. (GPS animal tracking usually involves attaching the GPS tracker to a radio collar, not insert it inside the animal).

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Dr Heathers rests his case here. He doesn’t even want to think of the other questions such as: how to make billions of such high-end chips in times of severe semiconductor shortage? How to persuade giant listed companies to risk committing an act of secret micro-chipping? How to offer an after-injection-maintenance? Etc.

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The Columbia Engineering group has since clarified their research has nothing to do with covid-19 and vaccinations. The microchip made by them uses ultrasound and can measure only temperature. Temperature of the rats. The microchip has been tested only on rodents, not on humans. Human testing will not happen any time soon.

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If you are already vaccinated, be happy. Nobody has planted any microchips inside you.

Ravi