As Covid-19 cases have risen recently, right-wing influencers and conspiracy theorists have been spreading fears about mass lockdowns and unsubstantiated ideas about Covid-19’s connections to world events.
“Do they want Covid measures back to put us on war footing in preparation for the war with Russia?” Jack Posobiec, a right-wing personality, asked his more than 150,000 followers on his Telegram channel.
There is limited evidence that the current wave of Covid-19 cases will lead to extreme countermeasures like those seen during the worst of the pandemic. The percentage of nationwide Covid-19 cases peaked at 14.1 percent in August, similar to previous surges, but hospitalizations remained at historic lows.
Instead, officials have responded with targeted efforts, acknowledging the country’s improved immunity, better treatments, and accessible tests that can help prevent surges from becoming full-blown crises.
However, conspiracy theorists and right-wing influencers see each increase in cases as an opportunity to spread fear and rally their supporters, according to disinformation experts. Terms like “plandemic” and “scamdemic” saw a significant rise in usage on right-wing websites in August, according to data from Pyrra, a company that monitors threats and misinformation on alternative social networks.
“It’s almost an obsession for the Covid denier, anti-vax community,” said Welton Chang, co-founder and CEO of Pyrra. “They blow things out of proportion for every little thing.”
Misinformation about Covid-19 has been present since the beginning of the virus. Much of it revolves around vaccines, with one-third of Americans believing that Covid-19 vaccines caused sudden deaths in healthy individuals, despite no evidence to support this claim, according to a survey by the KFF. Conspiracy theorists often spread these ideas as celebrities and athletes fall ill from unrelated causes.
In various right-wing spaces online, users continue to propagate baseless claims that the virus is a planned bioweapon, vaccines contain microchips, or unproven medicines offer simple cures for symptoms.
As Covid-19 becomes a recurring issue like the flu, disinformation experts warn that false and misleading ideas surrounding the pandemic will continue to evolve.
The latest misleading claims emerged after comments by the Biden administration in late August about a potential fall wave of Covid-19 infections. Health officials recommended vaccinations against new subvariants using upcoming booster doses.
The reaction was immediate.
“RED ALERT!” read one headline on Infowars, the conspiratorial website run by Alex Jones. “White House Announces Plan to Reimplement Covid Tyranny.”
The increase in cases has also mobilized conservative politicians, who find that criticizing lockdowns and mask mandates is a powerful message for Republican voters.
“No mask mandates,” said Vivek Ramaswamy, a Republican running for the presidential nomination, to The Daily Signal, a right-wing news site. “No vaccine mandates. No lockdown ever again.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, claimed that rising caseloads were exaggerated by Democrats to divert attention from their own failures.
“We’re going to have more Covid to increase mass hysteria and fear,” she said on Infowars.
Former President Donald J. Trump, the leading contender for the Republican nomination, has expressed his opposition to vaccines and other countermeasures he previously supported as president.
He recently posted a video on Truth Social, his social network, claiming that concerns about Covid-19 variants were part of a scheme to bring back vote-by-mail policies used during the 2020 election.
“The left-wing lunatics are trying very hard to bring back the Covid lockdowns and mandates with all of their sudden fear-mongering about the new variants that are coming,” he said. “Guess what else is coming? The upcoming election.”