When Fear Meets Ignorance: The Perfect Storm
Throughout history, pandemics have consistently unleashed two deadly forces – the disease itself and the misinformation that spreads alongside it. Because misinformation often spreads faster than facts, panic-inducing rumors have regularly outpaced medical knowledge during health crises. This deadly pattern emerges because misinformation thrives where people have little control over environmental threats – like volcanic eruptions, unpredictable weather patterns or disease, and people naturally seek security through any available information, even if it’s false.
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed this ancient truth once again, but it wasn’t the first time. Public responses to pandemic disease are largely unchanged since the Black Death. Disbelief of disease presence, misinformation, unclear public communication, disregard for governmental proclamations, and poor personal risk assessment were and are still common.
The 1918 Spanish Flu: When Governments Chose Lies Over Lives
The 1918 influenza pandemic stands as perhaps history’s most devastating example of how misinformation can amplify a health crisis. The outbreak which eventually became the 1918 Influenza Pandemic was worsened by a campaign of lies and misinformation conducted by the United States government. While the virus killed millions worldwide, government censorship and deliberate deception made everything worse.
As Americans were dying by the thousands, public health officials continually lied about the scope and severity of what was going on. The media fell right in line. The results were catastrophic – An October 15, 1918 headline in the Philadelphia Inquirer read “Scientific Nursing Halting Epidemic.” In that week alone, 4,597 people in Philadelphia died of flu-related illnesses. This wasn’t mere optimism; it was deadly deception that cost lives.
Why Nations Blamed Each Other Instead of Fighting Disease
Even the name “Spanish flu” reveals how misinformation shaped public understanding of the pandemic. The pandemic broke out near the end of World War I, when wartime censors in the belligerent countries suppressed bad news to maintain morale, but newspapers freely reported the outbreak in neutral Spain, creating a false impression of Spain as the epicenter and leading to the “Spanish flu” misnomer.
Countries eagerly blamed their enemies for the disease. In Brazil, meanwhile, it was “the German flu,” in Poland it was “the Bolshevik disease,” and in Senegal it was “the Brazilian flu.” In short, each country nicknamed the virus after a political opponent. This pattern of scapegoating diverted attention from actual public health measures and fostered dangerous xenophobia that hindered international cooperation.
Conspiracy Theories That Killed: German U-Boats and Poison Gas
Wild conspiracy theories flourished during the 1918 pandemic, demonstrating how desperate people grasp at explanations during uncertain times. There were also rumors that the Germans were behind it, for example by poisoning the aspirin manufactured by Bayer, or by releasing poison gas from U-boats. These weren’t isolated beliefs – they spread through communities faster than accurate medical information.
One such rumor, found in the pages of a Brazilian newspaper, suggested that the influenza virus was spread around the world by German submarines. Similar stories claimed that German boats coming ashore on the East Coast of the U.S. had released the infectious agent into the atmosphere. Such theories distracted from real prevention measures and fueled dangerous paranoia.
The Fatal Cycle: Fear Kills More Than Disease
Public officials during the 1918 pandemic embraced a dangerous philosophy that prioritized public morale over public health. Chicago offers one example: Its public health commissioner said he’d do “nothing to interfere with the morale of the community…. It is our duty to keep the people from fear. Worry kills more people than the epidemic”. That idea – “Fear kills more than the disease” – became a mantra nationally and in city after city.
This approach created a vicious cycle where official denials bred public distrust, which in turn made people more susceptible to rumors and conspiracy theories. Lack of access to information is almost certainly responsible for prolonging the pandemic. When authorities consistently downplayed the crisis, people turned to alternative sources of information – sources that were often wildly inaccurate.
The Science Was There, But Nobody Listened
Remarkably, the medical community in 1918 actually knew quite a lot about preventing disease transmission, but this knowledge was systematically suppressed or ignored. Identifying suspected cases through surveillance, and voluntary and/or mandatory quarantine or isolation, enabled the spread of Spanish flu to be curbed. At that time, these public health measures were the only effective weapons against the disease, as no vaccines or antivirals were available.
Yet with little helpful guidance available from the medical community, the world was ripe for the proliferation of ‘fake news’. The gap between what science knew and what the public heard created fertile ground for misinformation to take root and spread.
Modern Echoes: How COVID Repeated History
Health misinformation (false or misleading data shared unintentionally) and disinformation (deliberately deceptive information) are not new, but the COVID-19 pandemic marked a turning point. The sense of anxiety and urgency, coupled with the rise in the use of social media and politically charged interpretations of the pandemic, fostered the spread of a series of misleading claims about the virus and medical countermeasures.
The scoping review identified that misinformation significantly impacted mental health, vaccine hesitancy, and health care decision-making. Social media and traditional media were major conduits for spreading misinformation. Key misinformation themes included the origins of the virus, ineffective treatments, and misunderstandings about public health measures. The patterns established over a century ago repeated themselves with devastating precision.
The Psychology Behind Pandemic Rumors
Understanding why false information spreads faster than truth requires examining human psychology during crisis. Most people are susceptible to confirmation bias, the inclination to believe information consistent with one’s beliefs, and repetition bias, the tendency to believe information one has heard multiple times. Algorithms repetitively present users with information that aligns with their beliefs, meaning it is likely to be believable.
Information that is false, but seems to restore these basic needs, tends to spread quickly. Examples are quack remedies or rumours that the vaccine is just around the corner. During pandemics, people desperately want solutions, making them vulnerable to false promises and miracle cures that sound more appealing than complex medical advice.
The Viral Nature of False Hope
Research has consistently shown that misinformation possesses inherent advantages over accurate information in terms of spread and engagement. Research has shown that posts on X that contained misinformation received higher levels of engagement, spread more rapidly, and reached more users compared with posts that were truthful. The same study also found that misinformation tended to be more novel, which is believed to be one reason it is spread more quickly than the truth.
Researchers at MIT have found that fake news can spread up to 10 times faster than true reporting on social media. When explosive, misinforming posts go viral, their corrections are never as widely viewed or believed. The outrageous “fact” that blasts through audiences is louder, stickier, and more interesting than a follow-up correction. In the race between the false but interesting and the true but boring, the interesting story wins seemingly every time.
When Authority Figures Become Part of the Problem
Routinely, as influenza approached a city or town – one could watch it march from place to place – local officials initially told the public not to worry, that public health officials would prevent the disease from striking them. When influenza first appeared, officials routinely insisted at first it was only ordinary influenza, not the Spanish flu. As the epidemic exploded, officials almost daily assured the public that the worst was over. This pattern repeated itself again and again.
This systematic denial by authorities didn’t just fail to prevent panic – it actively fueled misinformation by creating an information vacuum that rumors rushed to fill. The significant death tolls did not reflect well on governments or public health authorities. Baseman’s research found that authorities were almost “universally presented as useless and slow… bumbling officials” who pontificated without providing “any real support or assistance”.
The Economic Incentive Behind False Cures
Throughout history, misinformation hasn’t just spread accidentally – it’s been deliberately promoted for profit. Many so-called health and wellness influencers and brands use social media to spread misinformation for economic benefit. Recently, public health researchers have called for the social media industry to be recognized as a commercial determinant of health, partly due to the financial incentives media giants receive to host misinformation on their platforms.
Social media misinformation, such as false claims about cinnamon being a treatment for cancer, has caused hospitalizations and even deaths. The financial incentives that drive misinformation create a perverse system where harmful false information generates more revenue than boring but life-saving public health messages.
Breaking the Cycle: What History Teaches About Fighting Misinformation
Combating misinformation takes a systematic approach akin to curbing the spread of infectious agents: finding and containing the source; proactively identifying the most vulnerable to its effects; and immunising the population against false claims by providing clear educational resources. This approach recognizes that misinformation, like disease, requires coordinated public health responses.
Experts and health professionals are among those best placed to refute misinformation and direct users to information sources that are evidence-based. Countermeasures include awareness campaigns for patients and health-care professionals, platforms with evidence-based data, the inclusion of scientific evidence in health-related content in mass media, and efforts to improve media and health literacy. The key lies in proactive rather than reactive approaches – building immunity to false information before it spreads.
The historical pattern is clear: during pandemics, rumors consistently spread faster than accurate medical information because they offer simple explanations for complex problems and false hope during desperate times. Understanding this pattern remains crucial for preparing for future health crises, as the fundamental psychology driving misinformation remains unchanged across centuries.