2020 wasn’t just a pandemic—it was an “infodemic.”
Conspiracy theories usually hide in the shadows, but this year they became mainstream. Because so little was known about COVID-19 when it emerged, people became more susceptible to narratives of which they might otherwise be skeptical. In the absence of authoritative, clear information, falsities floated to the top. By mid-February, the director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, was warning the world about an “infodemic.” Speculation and active misinformation about COVID-19 had become as dangerous as the disease itself.
