Ebola and hantavirus outbreaks prompt raft of conspiracy theories in divided US

Ebola spreading in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and a hantavirus outbreak linked to a South Atlantic cruise ship have triggered familiar conspiracy narratives in the United States. Ebola claims include bioweapons, financial schemes, and efforts to extract national resources. Hantavirus claims include crisis actors, blame on Covid vaccines and Bill Gates, Israeli false-flag operations, and the idea that ivermectin can cure it. These patterns are not new and have appeared during earlier outbreaks such as Covid and Ebola in 2014. Social media and AI-generated low-quality content increase how quickly such ideas circulate. Conspiracy-minded people interpret disease through existing biases and assign blame to groups they already dislike.

"Ebola, which the World Health Organization warned Friday is spreading rapidly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and poses a very high risk at the national level. In the upside-down world of conspiracy theories it could be a bioweapon, a financial plot, or a scheme to extract national resources."

"The Hantavirus outbreak, which began on a cruise ship in the South Atlantic, killing three passengers and causing at least 11 to test positive, carries its own set of baggage: passengers were crisis actors, or it was caused by Covid vaccines and Bill Gates, or perhaps it was an Israeli false flag operation and can be cured by the antiviral horse de-wormer ivermectin."

"This is not new, though undoubtedly the ever-growing influence of social media and now AI slop, means that such ideas spread further and faster than ever before. This is very normal, and we should not be shocked that people are conspiracy theorizing, said Dr Joseph Uscinski, an associate professor of political science at the University of Miami and author of a new book on the consequences of the Black Death that killed more than one third of Europeans in the 14th century."

"If people are paying attention to something, so are people who are conspiracy-minded, and they are going to interpret disease through that lens, he adds. Of course, there is going to be a conspiracy behind it and they're going to blame people they already dislike. Uscinski points out that theories around hantavirus and Ebola are not much different than during Covid, Aids, or other virus outbreaks."

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