A quarter of people in the UK believe Covid was or was probably a hoax (as well as believing other conspiracy theories)

[cakeorwine]

Quarter in UK believe Covid was a hoax, poll on conspiracy theories finds | Social trends | The Guardian

"The UK is home to millions more conspiracy theorists than most people realise, with almost a quarter of the population believing Covid-19 was probably or definitely a hoax, polling has revealed.
About a third of the population are convinced that the cost of living crisis is a government plot to control the public, and similar numbers think “15-minute cities” – an attempt to increase walking in neighbourhoods – are a government surveillance ruse, and that the “great replacement theory” – the idea that white people are being replaced by non-white immigrants – is happening."

I guess that there are people out there who believe in conspiracy theories - but I am very surprised by the numbers.

I wonder what the cross over is between theories - in other words, if you believe 1 conspiracy theory, you are more likely to believe another?

It is so funny that both sides think almost the exact same about each other:

Covid Fanatics - think conspiracy denier people needed some comfort from their anxiety by believing someone, somewhere was in control

Covid Deniers - think that covid fanatics just followed like sheep with the government rules to feel some comfort from their anxiety by believing someone was in control and 'looking after them' (govt and The Science)

I don't believe COVID was a hoax. I believe the government in the UK and even more so in other parts of the world used it to their advantage, maybe?

@hamstersarse I am not a "covid fanatic" I just understand and accept it exists.

@IdLikeToBuyTheWorldACoke But what was the advantage? Governments were noticeably reluctant to take the steps to lockdown, it was horribly unpopualr, economies across the world took a terrible hit, governments and their workers were run ragged, unable to carry out work they actually wanted to do. I fail to see what benefit it was to governments.

I must admit I can't see the direct benefit to them. Certainly not in the UK. But I have seen in some countries e.g. Australia and the US, a rise in right wing extremism since covid. Not saying it all down to covid but I wonder...the timing is interesting

Correlation is not causation.

Many people are rather inadequate, they have inflated opinions of their own importance and think themselves clever if they don't follow the mainstream view or the most logical one, i wonder how many who follow these wacky ideas also have poor educational attainment?

We saw this with Brexit, people who otherwise hadn't a clue about trade, tariffs or Eurotom suddenly became experts in all 3 and many more beside... on both sides.

Its not a conspiracy theory to think CV may have come from a Chinese lab but it is one if you fail to see the effects of Covid on peoples health.

Conspiracies rarely exist because of the states inability to keep anything secret at all, so the answer given is usually the correct one, just needs time for it all to come out... of course the time it takes may well be a conspiracy in itself!

I mean, you sound like you definitely know you aren’t inadequate….which, to be fair, does prove your own point in a spectacularly ironic way.

If you said it was a lab leak in 2020 or 2021, you were censored and called a tin pot conspiracy theory 🤷‍♀️

I sometimes wonder about the current definition of ‘conspiracy theory’. It seems like anything that the BBC or government says is true is said not to be true by someone is deemed to be crackpot conspiracy

There are so many examples of this throughout covid: lab leak, natural immunity, masks, 2m rule, rule of 6, wiping surfaces, vaccines and transmissions, outdoor transmission….all of which at various points were deemed to be conspiracy theories if you questioned them at the time

One of the main themes is we know from studying history eg ww1/ww2 etc how many secret operations there were, how much propaganda there was, how much east vs west. Spy vs spy.

Those days most operations could be covered up, now days it's possible they use conspiracy theory as a method.

You are so right there.
It seems anyone who questions anything the government says or the bbc is labeled a conspiracy theorist. Or is even a bit skeptical! It’s a convenient way of shutting down a conversation on a topic they don’t agree with.

I equally don't believe that Covid was a hoax.

I also believe that politicians will take advantage of a crisis (not of their making) for their own political advantage, for example Thatcher and the Falklands, Blair and Iraq(although that didn't work out to well for him).

I also believe that as more evidence came in politicians were reluctant to change their approach because this would have effectively meant admitting to mistakes, which would have been political suicide.

This is all pretty mainstream, I think? Sometimes people are more or less willing to accept that a particular decision was influenced by political concerns depending on how they feel about it, but the broad principles seem uncontroversial.

That was a waste of time