From 'Covid 2.0' to crisis actors: How hantavirus myths spread

Within minutes of reports emerging about a hantavirus outbreak aboard the cruise ship MV Hondius, social media platforms were awash with conspiracy theories, recycled Covid-19 narratives and misleading claims.

The Dutch-flagged vessel has now docked at its final destination in Rotterdam following the deadly outbreak which claimed three lives.

Posts describing the outbreak as "Covid 2.0" have been spreading rapidly across X, TikTok, Telegram and Reddit, echoing conspiracy narratives that circulated during the coronavirus pandemic.

Some of the most widely shared posts came from prominent conspiracy influencers with large online followings.

US-based Alex Jones, who has more than four million followers on X, described the outbreak as a "plandemic" and later claimed the virus was a "bioweapon."

The term "plandemic" became widely associated with Plandemic, a 26-minute viral video released in May 2020 that promoted false and misleading claims about Covid-19, vaccines, face masks and public health officials.

Jones is best known for falsely claiming the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting was staged using "crisis actors", a conspiracy theory that later resulted in major defamation judgments against him.

He has also linked the hantavirus outbreak to the Iran war and said that "globalists" were "launching Covid 2.0."

In conspiracy circles, globalists are often used to refer to an alleged secretive elite accused of manipulating world events to weaken national governments and impose global control.

Speaking to RTÉ Clarity, scientist and misinformation researcher Dr David Robert Grimes said figures such as Jones were tapping into a long-established pattern in which infectious disease outbreaks created fertile ground for "conspiratorial thinking."

"When you have a high-profile infectious disease outbreak, it always brings up the narrative that this was planned, someone did this," he said.

"It suddenly becomes agent centred. That is surprisingly appealing to a lot of people. They would prefer that there's someone responsible than random events can lead to outbreaks."

The outbreak, linked to the Andes strain of hantavirus, has led to nine confirmed cases and three deaths among passengers aboard the ship, which travelled across the South Atlantic after departing Argentina.

Health authorities in Ireland and abroad have repeatedly stressed the risk to the wider public remains "very low" and that the outbreak is not comparable to Covid-19.

But online, a familiar pattern quickly emerged, with multiple conspiracies proliferating online.

'Giant psyop'

One account with more than two million followers on X shared footage claiming the hantavirus outbreak aboard the cruise ship was a "giant psyop", a term used online to suggest events are staged or manipulated to influence public perception.

Some posts also veered into antisemitic conspiracy rhetoric, falsely claiming the word "hanta" was linked to Hebrew slang for a scam or fake, and using that claim to suggest the outbreak had been fabricated.

Grok, X’s AI chatbot, responded to queries from some users saying confirming the claim before later correcting itself and saying the word hanta was being confused with "khartah" or "chartah", Hebrew slang derived from Arabic.

The name hantavirus has no connection to Hebrew and comes from the Hantaan virus, named after the Hantan River area in South Korea, where it was identified in the 1970s.

Other influencers falsely claimed the hantavirus outbreak was being manufactured to distract from a separate criminal investigation involving workers on Disney Cruise Line vessels in the United States, despite there being no evidence linking the two incidents.

Widely circulated posts also claimed hantavirus was linked to the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, misrepresenting vaccine safety monitoring documents as evidence the virus was a known side-effect.

The claim was tested by Reuters, which reported that hantavirus infection appeared in a list of "adverse events of special interest" being monitored after vaccination, rather than a list of side-effects proven to be caused by the vaccine.

Such monitoring lists are routinely used in clinical trials to track any possible health events, whether or not they are linked to the vaccine.

While the strain identified in the MV Hondius outbreak can spread between people, there is no evidence linking hantavirus infection to Covid-19 vaccination.

Speaking this month, World Health Organization (WHO) Director of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness Maria Van Kerkhove sought to push back on comparisons with Covid-19.

"This is a very different virus. We know this virus, hantavirus has been around for quite a while and there is a lot of detail that we know," she said.

"This is not SARS-CoV-2. This is not the start of a Covid pandemic. This is an outbreak that we see on a ship. There’s a confined area."

Elsewhere, social media users pointed to previous WHO pandemic simulation exercises as supposed evidence health authorities had prior knowledge of the outbreak, despite there being no evidence linking the exercises to the events aboard the MV Hondius.

Experts say this misrepresents the purpose of such exercises, which are routinely used by health agencies to prepare for infectious disease emergencies.

‘Fill the vacuum’

Dr Grimes, an Assistant Professor at Trinity College Dublin, said a lack of details around outbreaks can create a vacuum that misinformation quickly fills online.

"People are scared of infectious disease for historical reasons, very valid ones, and therefore it guarantees attention," he said.

"And the attention particularly on social media will expand to fill the vacuum. And that means that the misinformation will also expand to fill it as well."

The confined setting of a cruise ship, alongside quarantines and international evacuations, also appeared to intensify speculation online, drawing immediate comparisons to the early days of Covid-19.

"It’s a worst-case scenario which makes it even more compelling because it’s in a confined location. As a narrative story, it's fantastic," he said.

"And then you have an issue where people get scared, but also, they get morbid about it. They’re able to speculate freely and it gets boring quickly unless you start injecting new elements."

‘Crisis actors’

Other posts falsely accused passengers documenting their quarantine experience online of being "crisis actors", a conspiracy term used to suggest individuals are secretly performing scripted roles during major events.

One passenger, American travel content creator Jake Rosmarin, was targeted by conspiracy accounts after sharing updates from quarantine facilities in the United States. There is no evidence Mr Rosmarin is an actor or that the outbreak was staged.

Dr Grimes said conspiracy narratives surrounding disease outbreaks are far from new.

"Historically, blaming outbreaks on conspiracy is really common. We saw it with Covid-19," he said.

"During the AIDS pandemic, there was a concerted Russian disinformation campaign to insist that America had invented AIDS as a weapon."

A Soviet-era campaign, known as Operation Denver, has been documented by the US-based research institute Wilson Center, which has published archival material including a 1985 KGB telegram showing efforts to spread false claims that AIDS was created by the US military as a biological weapon.

"Conspiratorial narratives are cynically predictable, it’s just much easier to happen virally now," Dr Grimes said.

"An event happens and then a few minutes later there’s people online speculating about it and the bigger the event the more they will speculate. Something about infectious disease always hits the fear box," he added.

Dr Grimes said that misinformation surrounding outbreaks can have serious real-world consequences, pointing to the impact Covid-19 conspiracy theories had on public trust in health advice.

"People that subscribe to Covid conspiracy theories in the US were far more likely to end up hospitalised or dead from Covid because they didn’t follow public health advice," he said.

"These people don’t care about that. The people spreading these conspiracy theories turn other people into victims of conspiracy theories."

As health authorities continue monitoring former passengers and crew linked to the outbreak, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said a total of 12 cases connected to the MV Hondius had been reported, including three deaths.

The ECDC said the risk to the wider public remains "very low" and that widespread transmission is "not expected".