For Lucy, a 59-year-old metastatic breast cancer patient from Washington state, getting vaccinated against COVID-19 was a matter of life and death. After undergoing aggressive chemotherapy for months, the coronavirus almost certainly would have killed her. Yet as relief washed over her upon receiving her final Pfizer dose in March, she knew she’d have to keep it to herself. Her husband had begged her not to get the shot.

At the outset of the pandemic, Lucy’s husband and partner of seven years, Shane, was as cautious as anyone about the virus. He kept a big container of hand sanitizer in the car and fanatically washed his hands, keys and other items. He wore a face mask everywhere he went, showered and changed his clothes immediately upon returning home from necessary outings, and was anxious for Lucy and her elderly mother, who lives with them, to get vaccinated as soon as possible due to their heightened vulnerabilities.

But as the crisis dragged on, 60-year-old Shane spent months cooped up inside on YouTube and Facebook, where a vortex of coronavirus conspiracy theory videos was waiting for him. Many declared that the virus was nothing to fear — that it was the vaccines he should really be afraid of. Before long, he was also tuning into the increasingly malicious disinformation networks Newsmax and OAN, which regularly rehashed the lies he’d been fed online. He was completely enthralled, Lucy said, and over time, his worldview “did a 180.”

Among other delusions, Shane is now steadfastly convinced that the COVID-19 outbreak was orchestrated by government-allied forces, the coronavirus is no more harmful than the flu, and the vaccines alter recipients’ DNA — condemning them to slowly perish.

He still doesn’t know Lucy is immunized; she hides her vaccine card in a safety deposit box.

“Everything fell apart last year,” said Lucy, who also snuck her mother out to get her shots behind Shane’s back. “I don’t even know who he is anymore.”

Shane is among the millions of Americans who have fallen prey to the coronavirus “infodemic” — the maelstrom of false and misleading information about COVID-19 that has gone viral during the pandemic, drastically hindering the nation’s recovery. Hyper-politicized anti-vaccine propaganda has reached countless U.S. households — largely by way of Fox News, far-right media outlets, GOP lawmakers and right-wing influencers — as terrifying conspiracy theories about the vaccines’ supposed lethality and nefarious development spread like wildfire across social media.

QAnon Contorts Father Of Parkland Survivor

A survivor of the 2018 Parkland, Florida, school shooting told Vice News his father has fallen deep into the QAnon rabbit hole and now believes the massacre that killed 17 people at his school was fake. The 18-year-old was part of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School’s final graduating class of survivors of the mass shooting. He spoke to Vice News anonymously, under the alias Bill, after sharing his story on a Reddit thread dedicated to supporting friends and family of QAnon followers. He said he wanted to protect his identity out of concern over attacks by conspiracy theorists.

Read more