‘Covid with feathers’: Conspiracy theories fly over flu outbreak
Bird flu experts are issuing warnings over an alarming rise in online conspiracy theories and laughing emojis as deaths continue to rise.
Social media pages of major South Australian media, government, and conservation organisations are being overrun with conspiracy theories following the outbreak of H5 bird flu.
Currently, there are 303 confirmed bird flu cases in SA including deaths to seals, little penguins and pelicans, with more than 11,000 reports of dead and sick wildlife to the hotline since June.
Following the death of the first sea lion at Seal Bay on Kangaroo Island last weekend, social media users took to the Facebook comment sections of prominent SA news outlets claiming it to be “propaganda” and urging the government to “stop this lie already”.
Posts announcing the deaths of wildlife have been inundated with hundreds of laughing reactions, with some users raising fears of a Covid-style lockdown.
Adelaide University professor Adrian Esterman is one of Australia’s most experienced epidemiologists and told InDaily the rise in misinformation and conspiracy theories related to viruses had risen since 2020.
“This is like Covid with feathers, and this is exactly what we saw during the Covid pandemic years, and it’s just now being swapped to avian flu,” Esterman said.
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“I put a lot of these issues with conspiracy theories and false claims down to the fact that the governments, both federal and state, mishandled Covid to a certain extent.
“Each state and territory response had different ways of quarantining. It had different lockdown periods, and the whole thing became a mess. And on top of that, they were very poor at messaging.”
Avian influenza viruses have been around for thousands of years, with the first recorded description of bird flu dating back to 1878 in northern Italy. Esterman said the H5 bird flu had been around for more than 30 years and its current H5N1 strain for five years.
“It’s wiped out millions and millions of wild birds and marine mammals all over the world,” he said.
“It has the potential and almost certainly will wipe out vast numbers of our wild birds. There’s no question about that because it’s done it all over the world.”
The Adelaide University professor said it was important to provide accurate information to large groups of social media users rather than getting caught in online arguments with individuals to dispel misinformation.
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“The way you do that is you provide evidence-based correct information. You explain why the statement is false, and then again repeat the correct information,” Esterman said.
“If we can explain clearly and evidence based the general population, and I do mean clearly, what is happening, why it’s happening, what the government is doing, and why they’re doing it, then I think we’re getting there.”
Invasive Species Council CEO Jack Gough said he was “not surprised” to see public messaging of bird flu hijacked by conspiracies.
“It’s definitely a concerning trend when something at the scale of bird flu does need a really serious government response and community response. Unfortunately, these conspiracy theories can do some real damage and undermine that,” Gough said.
“We’ve seen across a number of issues in society that conspiracy theories seem to crop up very quickly, particularly where it involves large government responses.”
Despite the negative traction from some corners of the internet, Gough said there had been a “really good response” from the public overall.
“There’s a huge amount of concern widely from the public around the impact, particularly on wildlife, of bird flu and so I think we’re not facing a crisis of confidence at a society-wide scale,” he said.
“Certainly it’s disappointing that whenever anyone, whether it’s a news organisation, government, an on-ground organisation, puts out information about birds at the moment, it gets very quickly taken over by some of these conspiracy theories.”
Environment Minister Emily Bourke told InDaily the volume of calls and reports had demonstrated “how seriously South Australians are taking the threat of bird flu”.
“The community is a critical part of our surveillance network and when people report sick or dead birds and wildlife, it helps us detect new cases earlier and support faster decision-making to minimise the impacts on wildlife,” Bourke said.
“Emoji reactions and conspiracy-related commentary on social media is not a true reflection of public sentiment in our state as South Australians have well and truly shown their support.”
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