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

Ever-growing influence of social media and AI means such ideas spreading at faster rates than before, experts say Hantavirus and Ebola outbreaks carry with them familiar attendants in the US: extreme conspiracy theories about a planned pandemic, or “plandemic”, designed to upend midterm elections or push new vaccines or any one of a myriad of wild ideas. Ebola, which the World Health Organization warned on Friday is spreading rapidly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 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 in the form of conspiracy theories: 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 a