According to the website, the United Kingdom is one of the places that registered the most cases of attacks against operators. British telecommunications company BT Group has revealed that it has already registered 39 cases of physical or verbal aggression against its engineers. In addition, 11 poles installed by the company were broken and even set on fire, and most of the affected infrastructure was not even connected to 5G. The first reports of operator tower depredation in the UK came earlier this month. According to the association Mobile UK, which represents operators in the United Kingdom, more than 20 attacks against operator facilities occurred during the Easter weekend alone. Vodafone UK CEO Nick Jeffery confirmed that one of the affected posts served the Nightingale Hospital in Birmingham, which could hinder communication between COVID-19 patients and family members. “It is touching enough that families cannot be next to loved ones who are seriously ill,” said Jeffery. “It is even more disturbing that even the small consolation of a phone or video call can now be denied because of the selfish actions of some deluded conspiracy theorists.” Unexpected problem According to Philip Jansen, BT’s CEO, the operator was prepared to deal with the social distance brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, but did not imagine that disinformation would be such a problem to deal with as well. “Everything about it doesn’t make sense,” the executive told The Mail on Sunday. “There is no validation in the theories and many even openly contradict themselves; all ignore the basic principles of science.” Conspiracy theories about 5G usually say that electromagnetic waves would pose health problems. However, the technology present in the connection is the same used in previous standards and guidelines stipulated in 1998 already indicate that the novelty is safe for human beings. To give more assurance to skeptics, the International Commission for the Protection against Non-Ionizing Radiation (ICNIRP), after seven years of research, recently reaffirmed that there are no health problems linked to 5G.
