【AI前沿】Hantavirus Conspiracy Theories Are Already Spreading Online

David GilbertPoliticsMay 12, 2026 10:53 AMHantavirus Conspiracy Theories Are Already Spreading OnlineFrom claims of an Israeli false flag to efforts to sell ivermectin, influencers and grifters are using lessons learned from Covid-19 to push their baseless conspiracy theories.Photograph: AFP/Getty ImagesCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyConspiracy theorists, wellnessinfluencers, andgriftershave already started promoting wild claims about thehantavirus outbreakthat began aboard the MVHondius, a cruise ship on the Atlantic.Some conspiracy theorists compared the outbreak to theCovid-19 pandemic, claiming it was another effort tocontrol the global population, while others pusheda false narrativethat theCovid-19 vaccinecaused hantavirus. Many others promotedivermectinas a treatment, using the incident as a way tosell emergency medical kitsfeaturing the antiparasitic drug typically used as a horse dewormer.In more recent days, many of these same people spreading conspiracy theories have promoted the baseless and antisemitic claims that the entire incident is a false flag orchestrated by Israel.Conspiracy theoriesflooding social mediainresponse to breaking newsarenothing new, but what is notable about those being pushed around the hantavirus outbreak is just how closely they echo the conspiracy theories promoted during the Covid-19 pandemic.“One of the most striking shifts since the Covid pandemic is how rapidly misinformation narratives now organize themselves around emerging outbreaks,” Katrine Wallace, an epidemiologist at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health, tells WIRED.“Within hours of the first hantavirus headlines, social media accounts were already promoting ivermectin, attributing the outbreak to Covid vaccines, and warning about a hantavirus vaccine that does not exist. The claims themselves were often contradictory, but that contradiction no longer appears to limit their spread.”Once thehantavirusoutbreak started making headlines around the world, conspiracy theorists and grifters jumped into action, spreading dangerously ill-informed claims and, of course, trying to sell people ivermectin.“Ivermectin should work against it,” Mary Talley Bowdenwrote on X. Bowden, a doctor, is a prominent promoter of medical misinformation who has promoted ivermectin as a treatment for Covid-19 and prescribed ivermectin to a Covid-19 patient. Hours after her first post on Hantavirus went viral, she followed up to say that she is selling ivermectin to Texans. Bowden did not respond to a request for comment.Her post, which has been viewed 4 million times, was shared by former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, whoaddedthat vitamin D and zinc would help fight the infection. Greene even claimed that not getting the Covid-19 vaccine had somehow allowed her to “develop natural immunity” against hantavirus.Greeneseparately claimed, without evidence, that the pharmaceutical company Moderna had purposely manipulated the virus in order to allow them to cash in by developing a hantavirus vaccine. Greene did not respond to a request for comment.Other prolific health disinformation promoters boosted the ivermectin claims, includingSimone Gold, the founder of Covid denial groupAmerica’s Frontline Doctors, andPeter McCullough, a disinformation peddler who promoted the “sudden death” conspiracy theory about the Covid-19 vaccine, which falsely claimed that those who received the shot were at risk of dropping dead without any warning.McCullough is also the chief scientific officer for the Wellness Company, which has been described as “Goop for the GOP.” The company has used the hantavirus outbreak topromotea $325 “Contagion Emergency Kit,” which includes both ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.All the false claims and posts about ivermectin gained enough traction online that the World Health Organizationrespondedto say that there is no research to suggest ivermectin is an effective treatment for hantavirus.Conspiracy theorists have, meanwhile, been pushing the baseless idea that a side effect of Covid vaccines includes a hantavirus infection.“List of Pfizer Covid jab side effects includes Hantavirus pulmonary infection!” Andrew Bridgen, a former UK lawmaker who boosted Covid-19 conspiracy theories,wrote on Facebookin a post that included a screenshot of submissions Pfizer filed to the FDA in 2021 to get a biological license for its vaccine.A Pfizer spokespersonconfirmed to Reutersthat the reference seen in the screenshot does not confirm that the vaccine causes hantavirus, but is simply a list of notable infections experienced by those trialling the vaccine in December 2020.“This was entirely predictable and gives the lie to the grift,” Neil Stone, an infectious disease doctor who debunks disinformation online, tells WIRED. “There is no science behind it, they just shift any Covid-related conspiracy to any other disease.”Many wellness influencers who downplayed the Covid-1