COVID-19 taught us that tackling a pandemic means tackling two pandemics: one viral and one informational.

Here are some of the emerging, and yet-to-emerge, misinformation trends from the Monkeypox outbreak:

Mutation

Viruses mutate. Mutation breeds uncertainty – both around how quickly it spreads and the severity of illness it causes. Uncertainty breeds misinformation. As we saw with the COVID-19 pandemic, new mutations spawn new waves of misinformation. If Monkeypox mutates, there is a reasonable probability that we’ll see the same.

Mutations also support the conspiracy theorists’ claim that viruses are being released systematically for population control. In July 2021, a fabricated document of unknown origin began to circulate on social media. It claimed to show planned release dates for COVID-19 variants from the World Health Organisation, World Economic Forum, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and John Hopkins University. Even conspiracy theorists, it seems, have go-to targets.

Identity-based hate

Most of what we call misinformation or disinformation is more accurately described as ‘adversarial narratives’. In other words: content and narratives which inflame social tensions, leading to real-world outcomes. These could be anything from  delays to climate action, damage to public health, degrading democracy or endangering groups at-risk of discrimination.

These narratives are built on a lot of the same foundations – distrust of progress, the state, elites – which is why they can bleed so easily into one another.

In the case of Monkeypox, we’re seeing a repeat of the mistakes that were made with the AIDS epidemic. Here, disinformation spreaders seek to blame the LGBTQ+ community for the outbreak, creating a real-world risk of harm. And this is not the only outcome. A potential secondary risk is towards non-LGTBQ+ individuals, also. With misinformation having followers believe this is a disease associated with the LGBTQ+ community, some non-LGTBQ+ individuals don’t consider themselves to be at-risk. This, once again, hampers the public health response.

Bogus health cures

Research shows that health anxiety makes individuals more susceptible to accepting online health misinformation. This means that as new viruses spread, so does the risk of individuals using unproven – and at times even dangerous – remedies. This is bolstered by a vast network of ‘alternative health’ grifters, looking to leverage a new crisis for their own financial gain.

By 25 March 2020, City of London police had already prosecuted an individual trying to make money off the back of false cures. With Monkeypox, there is high risk due to the fact that current treatments are fairly limited. The further monkeypox spreads and the more anxiety it generates, the more false cures we’re likely to see.

Government control

Thus far, we haven’t seen the extreme public health measures we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet if the virus were to mutate and pose a greater threat to public health, then the adversarial narrative backlash would most likely be severe. Most disinformation occurs in response to big, unfolding events, so we now have an opportunity to prepare for such an outbreak ahead of time.

Some conspiracy theorists have already posited that the Monkeypox virus is a ‘bioweapon’. Should mandatory government health guidelines come into force, we’d see an increase in this. Worse still, increased COVID fatigue in populations serves to increase the risk from these adversarial narratives going mainstream. To combat this, public health providers need to proactively create campaigns clarifying the facts. They need to express their deeper truths.

For more information about Lynn Health and how we could support your organisation please contact us. 

contact@lynn.global