Ebola and hantavirus outbreaks prompt raft of conspiracy theories in divided US
pressreader.com
When disease outbreaks strike a polarized society, conspiracy theories don't spread randomly — they follow the exact fault lines of existing distrust, and this Ebola-hantavirus moment proves the pattern.
Conspiracy Theory FormationMoral PanicSocial Identity TheoryAvailability Heuristic
Theory Briefing
- Ebola and hantavirus outbreaks in the US triggered immediate claims ranging from crisis actors to Bill Gates bioweapons, revealing how fear converts into narrative.
- Conspiracy theories latched onto pre-existing villains — Covid vaccines, Israel, Gates — showing how new crises are filtered through established distrust frameworks.
- In a deeply divided US, outbreak misinformation spreads along political fault lines, illustrating how social fragmentation supercharges the availability heuristic for implausible explanations.