POLITICO's Weekly Cybersecurity newsletter rounded up the wave of COVID-era misinformation tactics that resurfaced around the recent hantavirus outbreak, from unfounded "crisis actor" accusations to the unsupported promotion of ivermectin as a treatment.
The newsletter cited Alethea's tracking of a circulating claim, unsupported by any evidence, that pharmaceutical companies invented the outbreak for profit — a narrative POLITICO noted closely mirrors other conspiracy theories that spread during COVID-19.
The mention reinforces a trend Alethea has flagged repeatedly: the same accounts and narrative templates tend to resurface with each new public health scare, regardless of which disease is involved, which is why early detection matters as much as, if not more than, debunking after the fact.