Humanity is under siege with Covid-19. Whilst the crisis aggravates, the world is also grappling with yet another challenge - a global misinformation conundrum. This arises from the spread of contagious conspiracy theories that obfuscate understanding the pandemic at best. Incidentally, the conspiracy theories have gone as viral as Covid-19 itself, spreading just as swiftly digitally as the virus does physically. The outcome has been a spectrum of attitudinal patterns, ranging from cynicism and skepticism to outright (...) denialism and fatalism. Using a conversational analysis that is predicated on extant literature and personal insights, the paper examines the import of conspiracy theories as a major complication of the Covid- 19 challenge. The paper posits that the theories have produced narratives and attitudinal outcomes that not only misrepresent the pandemic but also complicate its mitigation. (shrink)

Humanity is under siege with Covid-19. Whilst the crisis aggravates, the world is also grappling with yet another challenge - a global misinformation conundrum. This arises from the spread of contagious conspiracy theories that obfuscate understanding the pandemic at best. Incidentally, the conspiracy theories have gone as viral as Covid-19 itself, spreading just as swiftly digitally as the virus does physically. The outcome has been a spectrum of attitudinal patterns, ranging from cynicism and skepticism to outright (...) denialism and fatalism. Using a conversational analysis that is predicated on extant literature and personal insights, the paper examines the import of conspiracy theories as a major complication of the Covid-19 challenge. The paper posits that the theories have produced narratives and attitudinal outcomes that not only misrepresent the pandemic but also complicate its mitigation. (shrink)

Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been an increase in religious conspiracy theories in Africa, ranging from outright denial, partial acceptance to spreading misinformation about the Coronavirus. This essay will argue that RCTs pose serious challenges to Covid-19 prevention by encouraging non-compliance to Covid-19 preventive measures and refusal to take Covid-19 vaccination. It will then formulate a personhood-based theory of right action. This new theory will be teased out of Ifeanyi Menkiti's account (...) of the normative conception of personhood and deployed here as a veritable tool for overcoming the challenges posed by RCTs in the fight against the COVID-19 Pandemic in Africa. (shrink)

In late March of 2020, a new hashtag, #FilmYourHospital, made its first appearance on social media. The hashtag encouraged people to visit local hospitals to take pictures and videos of empty hospitals to help “prove” that the COVID-19 pandemic is an elaborate hoax. Using techniques from Social Network Analysis, this case study examines how this conspiracy theory propagated on Twitter and whether the hashtag virality was aided by the use of automation or coordination among Twitter users. We found (...) that while much of the content came from users with limited reach, the oxygen that fueled this conspiracy in its early days came from a handful of prominent conservative politicians and far right political activists on Twitter. These power users used this hashtag to build awareness about the campaign and to encourage their followers to break quarantine and film what is happening at their local hospitals. After the initial boost by a few prominent accounts, the campaign was mostly sustained by pro-Trump accounts, followed by a secondary wave of propagation outside the U.S. The rise of the #FilmYourHospital conspiracy from a single tweet demonstrates the ongoing challenge of addressing false, viral information during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the spread of misinformation can be potentially mitigated by fact-checking and directing people to credible sources of information from public health agencies, false and misleading claims that are driven by politics and supported by strong convictions and not science are much harder to root out. (shrink)

While COVID-19 spreads aggressively and rapidly across the globe, many societies have also witnessed the spread of other viral phenomena like misinformation, conspiracy theories, and general mass suspicions about what is really going on. This study investigates how exposure to and trust in information sources, and anxiety and depression, are associated with conspiracy and misinformation beliefs in eight countries/regions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected in an online survey fielded from May 29, 2020 to June (...) 12, 2020, resulting in a multinational representative sample of 8,806 adult respondents. Results indicate that greater exposure to traditional media is associated with lower conspiracy and misinformation beliefs, while exposure to politicians and digital media and personal contacts are associated with greater conspiracy and misinformation beliefs. Exposure to health experts is associated with lower conspiracy beliefs only. Higher feelings of depression are also associated with greater conspiracy and misinformation beliefs. We also found relevant group- and country differences. We discuss the implications of these results. (shrink)

The COVID pandemic has sparked fear among many people worldwide and has thus led to the emergence of a variety of conspiracy theories. Individuals believing in these theories come from various social and demographic backgrounds, some of them being mere skeptics, while others are more radical and extreme. The present paper investigates the use of language in a conspiratorial anti-COVID Facebook group with the aim of describing the linguistic features and strategies employed to share and spread (...) class='Hi'>conspiracy theories and to form a common identity. The results show that the group uses features typical of extremist groups, such the ideological in- and out-group presentation, the use of agentless passives to create fear, and intertextual references. Further strategies detected in the data are the misrepresentation of scientific knowledge, the use of colloquial language, humor, and irony, among others, which are used to create a bond among the groups’ members and to set themselves apart from the government and the rest of the population, whom they perceive as enemies and oppressors. (shrink)

During the Covid-19 pandemic, considerable scholarly attention has been paid to the proliferation of conspiracy theories and their potential impacts. How and why digital media has facilitated the production, consumption, and distribution of such discourses as ‘truth’ remains largely neglected in the literature though. This paper explores this process through a transdisciplinary methodology designed to investigate legitimation in digital spaces. Based on a theoretical bridge between Beetham’s theory of legitimation and KhosraviNik’s principle that visibility-equals-legitimacy, the Multimodal Critical Affect-Discourse (...) Analysis of an audio-visual performance of the 5G conspiracy theory exposes how it has been simultaneously legitimized through authoritative performance and visibility. An interview given by the notorious conspiracy theorist David Icke, in which he associates the pandemic with 5G technology, was used as a case study because it was widely consumed and reproduced as ‘truth’, leading media companies to take unprecedented action against conspiracy theories. Besides contributing to existing debates on conspiracy theories, this paper offers new directions for the critical analysis of legitimation and power, acknowledging the fluid and diffuse nature of power in network societies and illuminating how meanings, beliefs, and affects have been manipulated by multiple actors to achieve consent and motivate collaborative authorship. (shrink)

Vaccination is considered a key factor in the sanitary resolution of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, vaccine hesitancy can undermine its diffusion with severe consequences on global health. While beliefs in conspiracy theories, mistrust in science and in policymakers, and mistrust in official information channels may also increment vaccine hesitancy, understanding their psychological causes could improve our capacity to respond to the pandemic. Thus, we designed a cross-sectional study with the aim of probing vaccine propensity in the Italian population (...) and explored its relationship with sociodemographic and psychological variables, and with misbeliefs in COVID-19. A battery of questionnaires was administered to a sample of 374 Italian adults during the first national lockdown. The materials included an original instrument—Beliefs in COVID-19 Inventory—and questionnaires measuring perceived stress, anxiety, death anxiety, psychological distress, psychoticism, paranoia, anger, and somatization. The exploratory factor analysis on Beliefs in COVID-19 suggested the existence of three factors: belief in conspiracy theories, mistrust in medical information, and mistrust in medicine and science. These factors were positively correlated with female sex, age, religious beliefs, psychiatric conditions, and psychological variables, while negatively correlated with education levels. We conducted a mediation analysis by means of a structural equation model, including psychological factors as predictors, beliefs in COVID-19 scales as mediators, and vaccine propensity as an outcome. The model showed that death anxiety had a direct positive effect on the propensity to get vaccinated. It also showed that death anxiety reduced the propensity to get vaccinated through a mediated path in believing in conspiracy theories, whereas paranoia was linked to a reduction in vaccination adherence with the mediation effect of mistrust in medical science. Psychological distress reduced vaccination propensity by increasing both conspiracy beliefs and mistrust. On the other hand, anxiety increased the propensity to get vaccinated through a decrease in both belief in conspiracy theories and mistrust in science. Our results suggest that psychological dimensions are differentially related to belief in conspiracy theories, to mistrust in science, and to the propensity to get vaccinated. Based on this result, we propose an original interpretation of how conspiracy beliefs build on a paranoid and suspicious attitude. We also discuss the possible clinical implications of treatment for such pathological beliefs. (shrink)

The new Coronavirus, namely Sars-CoV-2, took the world by surprise and grew into a pandemic worldwide in a couple of months since the beginning of 2020. It managed to lockdown at home almost half of the world population under the threat of illness and sudden death. Due to the extreme medical advises of containing the spread and damages of this threat, mostly directed towards social distancing, public gatherings cancelation, and contact tracing, each State imposed such regulations to their people and (...) for all areas of social activity, including the religious ones. This articles analyses four topics: 1. Restrictions imposed by the State and reactions by religious organizations. The theological-ethical response focused on the fact that all religions what to save lives and defeat death. 2. The pandemic shows the sensitive relation between the State and religions and shows the differences in power relations in the different countries. The theological-ethical response calls for a partnership between the State and the religions in their territory. 3. The relation between science and religion is tested during the pandemic. Whereas the majority of believers adhere to scientific results, a good part refuses scientific knowledge. The theological-ethical response of the authors is that science and religion are complementary and not contradictory. 4. Pandemics as situations of high uncertainty are often accompanied by conspiracy theories that claim to know who is guilty for the disaster, who is the scapegoat, which has to be punished. The theological-ethical response gives theological reasons to say no to conspiracies and scapegoats and yes to take responsibility wherever we are in order to save lives. (shrink)

COVID-19 pandemic occurred as an unexpected experience affecting all countries around the globe. In addition to the obvious health, economic and political effects, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered immense changes in the social spheres. People and institutions were forced to adjust to the new circumstances, change habits and move most or all of their activity online. In the completely virtual world, pandemic became a fertile ground for the bloom of the conspiracy theories already existing, but struggling for the (...) global attention. The aim of the paper is to present three main conspiracy theories rapidly gaining popularity during the pandemic (the QAnon, anti-vaccination movements and anti-5G movements) and to analyse how they developed since the pandemic had been announced. In particular, the rising activity of the representatives of the movements will be analysed, as well as its acceleration in connection with pandemic and the resulting influence on social and political life. Finally, the paper will try examine whether the rapid development of conspiracy theories within societies has had any relations to the level of trust towards government-made decisions. The thesis being verified hereto is that pandemic accelerated the development of conspiracy theories due to the diminishing level of trust towards governments operating in the most difficult period in recent history. There are variety of reasons for the belief in conspiracy theories and they depend on the specificity of the theory and specificity of group of people it originates from. In general, it can be noted that all kind of conspiracies are developed by either (1) people who actually believe in them and are sharing them with good intentions (to warn other about the dangers hidden behind certain actions or institutions) or (2) malignant individuals whose aim is to discord or discredit an opponent or critic or, alternatively, distract attention from misconduct or lack of competence. (shrink)

This paper analyses what kind of conspiracy theories are generated because of the emergence and spread of diseases. Conspiracy theory narratives that are generated during the different kinds of pandemics – cholera, AIDS and COVID-19 – are described and analysed, with special attention given to COVID-19 conspiracy theories. We raise a conceptual issue for further research indicating that the disease-related conspiracies do not perfectly square with the current psychological interpretations of conspiracy beliefs.

Communities often unite during a crisis, though some cope by ascribing blame or stigmas to those who might be linked to distressing life events. In a preregistered two-wave survey, we evaluated the dehumanization of Asians and Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our first wave revealed dehumanization was prevalent, between 6.1% and 39% of our sample depending on measurement. Compared to non-dehumanizers, people who dehumanized also perceived the virus as less risky to human health and caused less severe consequences (...) for infected people. They were more likely to be ideologically Conservative and believe in conspiracy theories about the virus. We largely replicated the results 1 month later in our second wave. Together, many Americans dehumanize Asians and Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic with related perceptions that the virus is less problematic. Implications and applications for dehumanization theory are discussed. (shrink)

Two theories on the origins of COVID-19 have been widely circulating in China and the West respectively, one blaming the United States and the other a highest-level biocontainment laboratory in Wuhan, the initial epicentre of the pandemic. Both theories make claims of biological warfare attempts. According to the available scientific evidence, these claims are groundless. However, like the episodes of biological warfare during the mid-twentieth century, the spread of these present-day conspiracy theories reflects a series of longstanding and (...) damaging trends in the international scene which include deep mistrust, animosities, the power of ideologies such as nationalism, and the sacrifice of truth in propaganda campaigns. Also, the threats associated with biological warfare, bioterrorism, and the accidental leakage of deadly viruses from labs are real and growing. Thus, developing a better global governance of biosafety and biosecurity than exists at present is an urgent imperative for the international community in the broader context of a looming Cold War II. For such a governance, an ethical framework is proposed based upon the triple ethical values of transparency, trust, and the common good of humanity. (shrink)

Unfounded—conspiracy and health—beliefs about COVID-19 have accompanied the pandemic worldwide. Here, we examined cross-nationally the structure and correlates of these beliefs with an 8-item scale, using a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. We obtained a two-factor model of unfounded (conspiracy and health) beliefs with good internal structure (average CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.04), but a high correlation between the two factors (average latent factor correlation = 0.57). This model was replicable across 50 countries (total (...) N = 13,579), as evidenced by metric invariance between countries (CFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMS = 0.07) as well as scalar invariance across genders (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03) and educational levels (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03). Also, lower levels of education, more fear of COVID-19, and more cynicism were weakly associated with stronger conspiracy and health beliefs. The study contributes to knowledge about the structure of unfounded beliefs, and reveals the potential relevance of affective (i.e., fear of COVID-19) and cognitive (i.e., cynicism) factors along with demographics, in endorsing such beliefs. In summary, we obtained cross-cultural evidence for the distinctiveness of unfounded conspiracy and health beliefs about COVID-19 in terms of their structure and correlates. (shrink)

At the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 became a global problem. Despite all the efforts to emphasize the relevance of preventive measures, not everyone adhered to them. Thus, learning more about the characteristics determining attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic is crucial to improving future interventions. In this study, we applied machine learning on the multi-national data collected by the International Collaboration on the Social and Moral Psychology of COVID-19 (N = 51,404) to test the predictive efficacy of (...) constructs from social, moral, cognitive, and personality psychology, as well as socio-demographic factors, in the attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic. The results point to several valuable insights. Internalized moral identity provided the most consistent predictive contribution—individuals perceiving moral traits as central to their self-concept reported higher adherence to preventive measures. Similar was found for morality as cooperation, symbolized moral identity, self-control, open-mindedness, collective narcissism, while the inverse relationship was evident for the endorsement of conspiracy theories. However, we also found a non-negligible variability in the explained variance and predictive contributions with respect to macro-level factors such as the pandemic stage or cultural region. Overall, the results underscore the importance of morality-related and contextual factors in understanding adherence to public health recommendations during the pandemic. (shrink)

This paper deals with the COVID 19 pandemic problems from the point of view of political epistemology. It analyses the validity of conspiracy theories related to the origin, existence, and premeditation of COVID 19, as well as the effectiveness and legitimacy of the vaccines developed to stop its advance. To this end, the development of the work focuses on what we call the problem of the "formulation" that underlies conspiracy theories, analyzing it in two related dimensions. (...) The first dimension of an epistemic nature provides a demarcation criterion for the rationality of theories based on the falsification criterion. The second dimension accentuates a political aspect analyzed from the standard of the reasonableness of such views. Both factors point out that conspiracy theories around the pandemic leave the world aside, whether in terms of the empirical basis that supports it or the democratic public space necessary for its development deliberation. From this approach, these views result in irrational and unreasonable ones to different degrees. (shrink)

Churches have always been regarded as a safe haven during calamities. This changed during COVID-19 lockdown when churches were forced to shut down. The COVID-19 pandemic has posed a new normal to the world at large, calling for immediate action from authorities and introducing vaccination as an antidote. However, some religious practitioners as a vehicle of change through the institution of the church have been acting on the contrary because it discourages the uptake of vaccines, leading to vaccine (...) hesitancy. COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy has been observed in the Christian community because Christians use Bible verses as a scapegoat for not getting a jab. There is a chasm that exists between faith and science, and it perpetuates the discourse of vaccine hesitancy. Contributions: This article applies a qualitative descriptive phenomenological approach and seeks to address the conspiracy theories and the use of Bible verses as discourse on vaccine uptake. (shrink)

Churches have always been regarded as a safe haven during calamities. This changed during COVID-19 lockdown when churches were forced to shut down. The COVID-19 pandemic has posed a new normal to the world at large, calling for immediate action from authorities and introducing vaccination as an antidote. However, some religious practitioners as a vehicle of change through the institution of the church have been acting on the contrary because it discourages the uptake of vaccines, leading to vaccine (...) hesitancy. COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy has been observed in the Christian community because Christians use Bible verses as a scapegoat for not getting a jab. There is a chasm that exists between faith and science, and it perpetuates the discourse of vaccine hesitancy. CONTRIBUTIONS: This article applies a qualitative descriptive phenomenological approach and seeks to address the conspiracy theories and the use of Bible verses as discourse on vaccine uptake. (shrink)

When a patient's treatment decisions are the product of delusion, this is often taken as a paradigmatic case of undermined decisional capacity. That is to say, when a patient refuses treatment on the basis of beliefs that in no way reflect reality, clinicians and ethicists tend to agree that their refusal is not valid. During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, we have witnessed many patients refuse potentially life-saving interventions not based on delusion but on conspiracy beliefs. Importantly, many of (...) the beliefs espoused by conspiracy theorists resemble delusions in a number of relevant ways. For instance, conspiracy beliefs often posit states of affairs that could not possibly exist in the world, they are recalcitrant in the face of disconfirming evidence, and they tend to put the believer in a state of paranoia. Given these similarities, how should we think about conspiracy theorists' capacity for making clinical decisions? In this paper, I attempt to answer this question by first offering an account of just what makes some set of beliefs count as a conspiracy theory. Second, I attempt to disambiguate conspiracy beliefs from delusions by exploring important conceptual and psychological features of both. Finally, I apply standard criteria for assessing a patient's decision-making capacity to instances of conspiracy beliefs and argue that, although the picture is muddy, there may be cases in which conspiracy beliefs undermine capacity. I end by exploring the implications that this might have for surrogate decision-making and addressing potential objections. (shrink)

Information, as well as freedom of expression and freedom of the media are essential for democratic society and fundamental characteristic of modern states. The year 2020 will be remembered as a year of pandemic caused from Covid-19 (coronavirus) and a year of response to unexpected challenge that the spread of the virus caused. In the times of pandemic and any type of crisis, the media always plays a key role in informing the public all over the Globe. This paper (...) aims to make theoretical descriptive research and analysis of the influence of coronavirus on news consumption, the role of media in communication and presentation of important developments during pandemic. The authors present an overview of the media system and the latest developments in the EU in preventing fake news related to the pandemic. We conclude that media plays key role in informing the citizens during pandemic and therefore they have increased responsibility in providing reliable information. At the same time, since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the media have been challenged with parallel outbreaks of disinformation and misinformation about the virus, ranging from fake coronavirus cures, false claims and harmful health advice to wild conspiracy theories. Disinformation can in turn speed up the spread of disease, hinder effective public health responses, as well as create confusion, fear and distrust. We highlight the fundamental function of creating awareness regarding the topic based on facts, and the need of media for preventing panic and fostering people's understanding by ‘checking the source and information twice’. (shrink)

The beginning of the twenty-first century saw an apparent change in language in public discourses characterised by the rise of so-called “essentially oxymoronic concepts”, i.e., mainly oxymora and paradoxes. In earlier times, these rhetorical figures of speech were largely reserved for the domain of literature, the arts or mysticism. Today, however, many new technologies and other innovations are contributing to their rise also in the domains of science and of law. Particularly in law, their inherent contradictory quality of combining apparently (...) antagonistic suppositions challenges the traditional dualistic mode of reasoning and binary logic. As reflected in terms like fake news, alternative facts or conspiracy theories, these concepts are seen as a threat to the rule of law and legal certainty and have been described as harbingers of an age of disinformation or post-truth. The challenge posed by these apparently contradictory concepts requires a closer look at the premises that guide our legal thinking and a more integrated theory of the senses and their role in law, as captured by the terms “legal synaesthesia” and “legal semiotics”. It also calls for an inquiry into the mind’s functioning generally and how it processes information in the creative process of decision making, linking thoughts and actions as well as facts and fictions. Based on the qualification of “fake news” as an oxymoron, this article critically examines the deficiencies in a dichotomous distinction between fact and fiction exemplified by information about the pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 in an attempt to clarify the principal issues for a global regulatory debate regarding “fake news”. (shrink)

Research on conspiracy theories has proliferated since 2016, in part due to the US election of President Trump, the COVID-19 pandemic, and increasingly threatening environmental conditions. In the rush to publication given these concerning social consequences, researchers have increasingly treated as definitive a 2016 paper by Michael Wood (Political Psychology, 37(5), 695–705, 2016) that concludes that the phrase “conspiracy theory” has no negative effect upon people’s willingness to endorse a claim. We revisit Wood’s findings and its (re)uptake (...) in the recent literature. Is the label “conspiracy theory” a pejorative? If so, does it sway or affect people’s belief in specific claims of conspiracy (i.e. particular conspiracy theories), or is the effect one that concerns claims of conspiracy more generally (i.e. all conspiracy theories)? Through an examination of the conceptual and methodological scope of Wood’s work and the results of our similar quasi-experimental design, we argue that it is premature to suggest the label “conspiracy theory” has no impact on the believability of a claim, or that it has no rhetorical power. (shrink)

Unfounded—conspiracy and health—beliefs about COVID-19 have accompanied the pandemic worldwide. Here, we examined cross-nationally the structure and correlates of these beliefs with an 8-item scale, using a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. We obtained a two-factor model of unfounded (conspiracy and health) beliefs with good internal structure (average CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.04), but a high correlation between the two factors (average latent factor correlation = 0.57). This model was replicable across 50 countries (total (...) N = 13,579), as evidenced by metric invariance between countries (CFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMS = 0.07) as well as scalar invariance across genders (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03) and educational levels (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03). Also, lower levels of education, more fear of COVID-19, and more cynicism were weakly associated with stronger conspiracy and health beliefs. The study contributes to knowledge about the structure of unfounded beliefs, and reveals the potential relevance of affective (i.e., fear of COVID-19) and cognitive (i.e., cynicism) factors along with demographics, in endorsing such beliefs. In summary, we obtained cross-cultural evidence for the distinctiveness of unfounded conspiracy and health beliefs about COVID-19 in terms of their structure and correlates. (shrink)

We must suffer, suffer into truth. –AeschylusThe outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 in late 2019 along with the ensuing shutdowns and scramble for a vaccine provided unprecedented soil for various conspiracy t...

This article theorizes the connection between political distrust and conspiracy theories through a post-political framework. Following Luc Boltanski’s focus on the critical capacities of ordinary actors, it builds on interviews with participants of the Yellow Vest Movement in France who hold conspiratorial views of Covid-19 and the vaccine. The article explores how the interviewees’ critique mirrors that of post-political theorists. In particular, I use Rancière’s notion of subjectification and politics to theorize how conspiracy theories function as a (...) means of dissent in the interviewees’ understanding of their experiences as well as in their own critique of and disillusionment with politics in France. As such, this article explores how political trust affected reactions to the pandemic, how political trust is interconnected with conspiracy theories and finally how such conspiracy theories can be viewed as biproducts of the post-political order. (shrink)

Times of uncertainty and fear were brought on by Covid-19. The ongoing pandemic is a fruitful ground for fake news, as citizens try to find explanations that fit into their worldviews. This process polarizes society and creates echo chambers amplified by recommender systems. Our main goal is to detect anti-vaxxer echo chambers in Serbia by analyzing online reactions to the recent detention of prominent anti-vaxxer Dr. Jovana Stojkovic. A content analysis of online comments is deployed in anti-regime left-leaning, anti-regime (...) right-leaning, and pro-government media to explore attitudes towards a vaccination conspiracy theory, police action towards anti-vaxxers, and the government crisis response team. We clearly identify the anti-vaccine echo chamber among commentators of anti-regime right-leaning media (YouTube podcasts). Additionally, we describe attitudes expressed around issues related to vaccination. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed. (shrink)

Conspiracy theories integrate, connect and catalogue together what are clearly independent and unrelated events in order to demonstrate correlation and construct impossible, fabricated tales of causation. In a narrative sense, these extremely sophisticated stories are often very intriguing, and their diffusion comes about due to a legitimate desire to enrich the non-scientific literature available. In other cases, despite the cultural maturity of the Western world, conspiracy theories are promoted as real news, able to upset public opinion and to (...) involve a part of the population in Pindaric flights. Moreover, in many cases the creators of these illogical conspiracies are held as suffragists of so-called ‘free thought’, departing from mainstream theories and opening up the mind of the population to new and elevated levels of comprehension of reality and at the moment, the spread of Covid-19 produces a greater awareness of the societal role of the individual. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a data-political spectacle. Data are omnipresent in prediction and surveillance, and even in resistance to governmental measures. How have citizens, whose lives were suddenly governed by pandemic data, understood and reacted to the pandemic as a data-political phenomenon? Based on a study carried out in Denmark, we show how society became divided into those viewing themselves as supporters of the governmental approach to the COVID-19 pandemic, and those who oppose it. These groups seem (...) to subscribe to very different truths. We argue, however, that both sides share a positivist ideal and think that data and facts ought to rule. Both sides have also come to acknowledge that data are not unambiguous, and both cast increasing doubts on political uses of data. Though the people agreeing with, and the people opposing, the government strategy are in many ways surprisingly similar with respect to epistemic norms, they differ in what they perceive as dangerous or desirable, and in who they believe are telling the “truth” about the pandemic. These different perceptions result in different types of pandemic-related activism. Resistance against restrictions is often understood as inspired by conspiracy theories and in some countries anti-restrictions activism has turned violent. In our case, however, we suggest that when looking at similarities and differences across both groups, the gap between those opposing and those agreeing with the government approach is not as unbridgeable as might be suggested by their beliefs in differing truths and the emerging societal division. (shrink)

Coronavirus disease 2019 escalated into a real pandemic within 3.5 months and had caused 183 000 deaths in 2020. The complexities of COVID-19 since the end of 2019 and throughout 2020 left a mouth full and the second wave has not least to be said. The purpose of this article is to challenge the response of the church in a time when her voice is mostly needed. During the lockdown Level 5, churches were amongst the many trends that had (...) to close their doors to the believers and the community. This was a great shock because churches throughout history have been known as safe havens and anchorages. Churches helped with answers to unanswered questions, and in some instances, confessional statements and creeds were born. In the case of COVID-19, a lot of conspiracy theories went viral about COVID-19 and the vaccines that were still in their research stage. Lots of speculations rose as to the cause of this pandemic. The implementation of 5G was viewed as the cause of the coronavirus at the beginning of 2020, and much had to be done to correct this fallacy. Another controversial fallacy was the link of the vaccination with the beast's mark, as was recently also insinuated in Chief Justice's prayer. Questions have already been asked, what is the voice of the church in this regard? Congregation deals with this in different ways. Hence the relevance to the question, how timely can exegesis be to contemporary ecclesiology? What would be relevant hermeneutics that could assist in embodying faith in a corona-defined world? CONTRIBUTION: This article strives to develop an interpretation of 666 that could be relevant to the questions asked and suggest a way forward in embodying faith in a corona-defined world and beyond. (shrink)

Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been an increase in religious conspiracy theories in Africa, ranging from outright denial, partial acceptance to spreading misinformation about the Coronavirus. This essay will argue that RCTs pose serious challenges to Covid-19 prevention by encouraging non-compliance to Covid-19 preventive measures and refusal to take Covid-19 vaccination. It will then formulate a personhood-based theory of right action. This new theory will be teased out of Ifeanyi Menkiti's account (...) of the normative conception of personhood and deployed here as a veritable tool for overcoming the challenges posed by RCTs in the fight against the COVID-19 Pandemic in Africa. (shrink)

This monograph evaluates public policy responses to the Covid-19 pandemic through a public choice lens. The book compares two prominent, albeit mutually exclusive, theories in social sciences—public interest theory and public choice theory—and explores how their predictions perform within the framework of the Covid-19 pandemic. The chapters present different pandemic policies alongside empirical data in order to draw conclusions about their efficacy, and, in turn, draw conclusions about the veracity of each theory. By the end of the volume, (...) the reader will be able to draw their own conclusions about whether the pandemic policy responses served the public interest, as public interest theory suggests, or the personal interests of the politicians who implemented them, as public choice theory holds. (shrink)

The coronavirus pandemic, like its predecessors - AIDS, Ebola, etc., is evidence of the evolutionary instability of the socio-cultural and ecological niche created by mankind, as the main factor in the evolutionary success of our biological species and the civilization created by it. At least, this applies to the modern global civilization, which is called technogenic or technological, although it exists in several varieties. As we hope to show, the current crisis has less ontological as well as epistemological roots; its (...) reason lies in the main evolutionary trends in the development of science as a social institution. It was only later that epistemological factors were transformed into existential-ontological factors associated with the asymmetry of the existence of civilization and our biosocial nature. The perception or ignorance of a risk factor as a real fact is determined by the presence or absence of knowledge about it. In other words, risk is the result of the integration of the corresponding ontological concept into the general categorical structure. The plurality of such structures is a hallmark of multidisciplinary ontologies, each of which is associated with its own factual continuum. The aim of this study was to conceptually model for support relativistic parameter of evolutionary efficiency of stable evolutionary human strategy (SESH) in its techno-rationalistic module. The meaning of this term is equivalent to the category of scientific and technological development. (shrink)

One of the appeals of conspiracy theories in times of crises is that they provide someone to blame for what has happened. Thereby, they increase distrust, negative feelings, and hostility toward implicated actors, whether those are powerful social outgroups or one’s own government representatives. Two studies reported here examine associations of COVID-19 conspiracy theories with prejudice, support for violence, and other and negative social outcomes. In Study 1, the endorsement of the more specific conspiracy theories about (...) the alleged role of China was associated with more prejudiced views of Chinese and Italian people. In Study 2, lowered trust in government regulations and increased hostility associated with the COVID-19 and generic conspiracy beliefs were correlated with justification of and willingness to engage in non-compliance with regulations, violent attacks on 5G masts, and anti-government protests. Across both of the studies, higher exposure to news about COVID-19 was associated with lower endorsement of conspiracy theories, but also with increased feelings of anxiety and lack of control, which in turn were correlated with higher COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs endorsement. We highlight the potential social problems which are associated with the wide-spread endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracy theories. (shrink)

The role of bioethicists amidst crises like the COVID-19 pandemic is not well defined. As professionals in the field, they should respond, but how? The observation of the early days of pandemic confinement in Finland showed that moral philosophers with limited experience in bioethics tended to apply their favorite theories to public decisions, with varying results. Medical ethicists were more likely to lend support to the public authorities by soothing or descriptive accounts of the solutions assumed. These are approaches (...) that Tuija Takala has called the firefighting and window dressing models of bioethics. Human rights lawyers drew attention to the flaws of the government’s regulative thinking. Critical bioethicists offered analyses of the arguments presented and the moral and political theories that could be used as the basis of good and acceptable decisions. (shrink)

This review seeks to evaluate certain aspects of “healthcare governance” during the Covid 19 pandemic, in particular the damage caused by policies based on unscientific views. Indeed, in addition to a health crisis, the pandemic coincided with a crisis of global governance that undermined scientific medicine, health systems and the communication of scientific data. This was partly driven by scientific denialism, exhibited most prominently by then-US president Donald Trump, with disastrous results in terms of health policy. Here we examine (...) articles appearing in Science, N Engl J Med, Sci Am and Front Public Health that adopt a political stance against such denialism, breaking with their traditional neutrality. The analysis addresses the effects of the pandemic on health systems and the general population, as well as on the ways in which science is produced and applied, together with its contradictions. It looks at how political and economic considerations resulted in inconsistent and contradictory models of scientific development that were to have disastrous effects on citizens’ health. In response to scientific denialism and the damage it can cause, we commend the OECD report entitled PISA 2018 Assessment and Analytical Framework, which highlights the role of education in the development of scientific literacy in the younger generations. We also consider the work of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which recognises and celebrates the value of science in ensuring accessibility to knowledge and scientific endeavour in society. Our analysis suggests that scientific knowledge should be a fundamental tenet, equal to that of individual freedom, of political governance. In this way, health policies can respond more adequately to global threats. (shrink)

This research aims to examine access to medical treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic for people living with disabilities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the practical and ethical problems of allocating limited medical resources such as intensive care unit beds and ventilators became critical. Although different countries have proposed different guidelines to manage this emergency, these proposed criteria do not sufficiently consider people living with disabilities. People living with disabilities are therefore at a higher risk of exclusion from medical treatments (...) as physicians tend to assume they have poor quality of life, whereas access to medical treatment should be based on several parameters, including clinical data and prognosis. However, the COVID-19 pandemic shifts the medical paradigm from person-centred medicine to community-centred medicine, challenging the main ethical theories. We reviewed the main guidelines and recommendations for resources allocation and examined their position toward persons with disabilities. Based on our findings, we propose criteria for not discriminating against people with disabilities in allocating resources. The shift from person-centred to community-centred medicine offers opportunities but also risks sacrificing the most vulnerable people. The principle of reasonable accommodation must always be considered to guarantee the rights of persons with disabilities. (shrink)

Part of the rationale behind public health measures is protecting the vulnerable. One of the groups most vulnerable to COVID-19 are the elderly and, consequently, many countries adopted public health measures that aimed to keep the elderly safe. The effectiveness and the consequences of those measures, however, leaves a lot to be desired. In my article, I will look at the steps that the Nordic countries took to protect their elderly and assess their success. I will further analyze those (...) in the light of standard ethical theories. Public health crises often call for choices between two evils. Selecting patients for intensive care is one such choice, and again, it seems that for the elderly, the outcome was less than favorable. Overall, from the point of view of ethics, many countries failed miserably when it came to the treatment of the elderly. I will end my paper by discussing the lessons we can learn from the COVID-19 pandemic and suggests measures we need to take to offer genuine respect for the rights of the elderly. (shrink)

The next pandemic will erupt, not from the jungle, but from the disease factories of hospitals, refugee camps and cities. Wendy Orent, How Plagues Really Work,.

The role of bioethicists amidst crises like the COVID-19 pandemic is not well defined. As professionals in the field, they should respond, but how? The observation of the early days of pandemic confinement in Finland showed that moral philosophers with limited experience in bioethics tended to apply their favorite theories to public decisions with varying results. Medical ethicists were more likely to lend support to the public authorities by soothing or descriptive accounts of the solutions assumed. These are approaches (...) that Tuija Takala has called the firefighting and window dressing models of bioethics. Human rights lawyers drew attention to the flaws of the government’s regulative thinking. Critical bioethicists offered analyses of the arguments presented and the moral and political theories that could be used as the basis of good and acceptable decisions. (shrink)

During the Covid-19 pandemic, public policy was not driven by findings from public health research, but by politicians’ desire to pursue their own interests. The media and politicians inflamed mass hysteria and then imposed ill-considered lockdowns to “solve” the problem. Lockdowns not only failed to protect those at risk from the virus, but also caused enormous collateral damage. Public choice theory helps explaining this decision-making. -/- .

The COVID-19 pandemic has been overwhelming public health-care systems around the world. With demand exceeding the availability of medical resources in several regions, hospitals have been forced to invoke triage. To ensure that this difficult task proceeds in a fair and organised manner, governments scrambled experts to draft triage guidelines under enormous time pressure. Although there are similarities between the documents, they vary considerably in how much weight their respective authors place on the different criteria that they propose. Since (...) most of the recommendations do not come with ethical justifications, analysing them requires that one traces back these criteria to their underlying theories of distributive justice. In the literature, COVID-19 triage has been portrayed as a value conflict solely between utilitarian and egalitarian elements. While these two accounts are indeed the main antipodes, I shall show that in fact all four classic theories of distributive justice are involved: utilitarianism, egalitarianism, libertarianism, and communitarianism. Detecting these in the documents and classifying the suggested criteria accordingly enables one to understand the balancing between the different approaches to distributive justice—which is crucial for both managing the current pandemic and in preparation for the next global health crisis. (shrink)

COVID-19 has crowned1 a number of other disasters (wildfires in Australia, Desert Locusts in Kenya, an imminent WWIII merging Iran and the US), causing panic to click into place and horror to become our global predicament, making us realize that we live in the illusion of the permanence of things, of mastery, and of immortality. People’s turning to social media for trans-local news on COVID-19 has stirred great ire in the world. This led to the proliferation of dark (...) images that associate the viral catastrophe with the end as we know it. To problematize the idea of the apocalypse (or the end) this paper speaks of three moments of survival in human existence: the beneath, the behind and the beyond. We argue that the apocalyptic nature of the pandemic and its global horrorism are part of a congeries of apocalyptic simulations that have always been part of the narrative with which we try to define ourexistence on earth. This paper masks itself against perfunctory examinations of the term apocalypse, and offers instead an understanding that runs along the lines of its Greek etymological sense as apokalyptein (revelation). It offers what Foucault calls an ontology of the present, that interrogates the history of COVID -19 with an emphasis neither on its origin nor on its telos. As beyondists, the COVID-19 catastrophe has revealed to us that 1) we have ‘access to knowledge beyond knowledge’ (see Gumpert Citation2012), and therefore that 2) our modern predicament is not very modern. The end, (not) to be sure, has been lived and relived in the boundary between reality and simulation. After all, the end of something comprises the beginning (in reverse) of that which “endeth”, throwing the beyond, behind and beneath in the Ferris wheel of epistemological and existential entanglement. (shrink)

A series of denialist state laws thwart efficacious public health emergency response efforts despite escalating impacts of the spread of the Delta variant during the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the COVID‐19 pandemic, healthcare professionals around the world were driven by universal values of solidarity and duty to provide care. However, local societal norms and existing healthcare systems influenced interactions among physicians, and with patients and their families. An exploratory qualitative study design using in‐depth interviews was undertaken with physicians working at two public sector hospitals in Karachi, Pakistan. Using the constant comparison method of data analysis, several key themes were identified highlighting norms of kinship and interdependencies characteristic (...) of collectivistic societies that influenced professional interactions. The role of seniors in the hierarchical society of Pakistan played a major role in provision of care. Physicians reported numerous challenges in dealing with patients and their families amidst public denial fueled due to ill‐formed government policies. This included interruption of funeral rites which undermined public trust. The study provides insights into the local moral world of two healthcare institutions in Pakistan. (shrink)

When faced with adverse circumstances, there may be a tendency for individuals, agencies, and governments to search for a target to assign blame. Our focus will be on the novel coronavirus outbreak, where racial groups, political parties, countries, and minorities have been blamed for spreading, producing or creating the virus. Blame—here defined as attributing causality, responsibility, intent, or foresight to someone/something for a fault or wrong—has already begun to damage modern society and medical practice in the context of the (...) class='Hi'>COVID-19 outbreak. Evidence from past and current pandemics suggest that this tendency to seek blame affects international relations, promotes unwarranted devaluation of health professionals, and prompts a spike of racism and discrimination. By drawing on social and cognitive psychology theories, we provide a framework that helps to understand the effect of blame in pandemics, when people blame, whom they blame, and how blame detrimentally affects the COVID-19 response. Ultimately, we provide a path to inform health messaging to reduce blaming tendencies, based on social psychological principles for health communication. (shrink)

This research explores the experiences of UK NHS healthcare professionals working with asylum applicants housed in contingency accommodation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a critical understanding of the concept of moral resilience as a theoretical framework, we explore how the difficult circumstances in which they worked were navigated, and the extent to which moral suffering led to moral transformation. Ten staff from a general practice participated in semistructured interviews. Encountering the harms endured by people seeking asylum prior to arrival (...) in the UK and through the UK’s ‘Hostile Environment’ caused healthcare staff moral suffering. They responded to this in several ways, including: (1) feeling grateful for their own fortunes; (2) defining the limitations of their professional obligations; (3) focusing on the rewards of work and (4) going above and beyond usual care. Although moral resilience is reflected in much of the data, some participants described how the work caused ideological transformations and motivated challenges to systems of oppression. We show how current moral resilience theory fails to capture these transformative political and social responses, warning of how, instead, it might encourage healthcare staff to maintain the status quo. We caution against the widespread endorsement of current formulations of moral resilience in contemporary social and political climates, where the hostile and austere systems causing suffering are the result of ideological political decisions. Future work should instead focus on enabling working conditions to support, and developing theory to capture, collective resistance. (shrink)

This article discusses the ways in which healthcare professionals can use emotion as part of developing an ethical response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Affect theory, a growing approach to inquiry in the social sciences and humanities that appraises the historical and cultural contexts of emotions as expressed through art and politics, offers a frame for clinicians and researchers to consider ethical questions that surround the reopening of the United States economy in the wake of COVID-19. This article uses (...) affect theory to describe how healthcare workers’ emotions are useful for formulating a reopening plan grounded in collective action and a duty to do no harm. (shrink)

We live in an era that normalized absurdism and abnormality. From successive devastating economic and environmental havoc, the world is now before a pandemic with a lethal footprint throughout the planet. The pandemonium became global. This paper situates the current COVID-19 pandemic within the context of an endless multi-plethora of devastating sagas pushing humanity into an unimaginable great regression. In doing so, the paper examines, how such pandemic reflects the very colors of an intentional epistemological blindness that frames Eurocentric (...) reasoning, which crippled the political economy of global capitalism deepening and accelerating a never-ending and non-stop crisis that started in 2008. The paper explores also the social construction of the current pandemic and argues for alternatives ways to think and to do education and curriculum theory alternatively to challenge Modern Western Eurocentric reasoning. In doing so, advances itinerant curriculum theory as a just approach, a just alter-curriculum ‘theory now’, one that respects the world’s pluri-epistemological diversity, and aims to walk way from utopias framed within the borders determined by coloniality towards an anti-decolonial climax, and ‘heretopia’. (shrink)