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?

Only read some of the responses.

It was a survey of 2274 adults - which is typical of standard opinion polls.

Even in a population like the UK, you don't need to ask too many people to get a 95% or 97.5% confidence rate in your result with a certain confidence in the percentage give or take a few percent.

So you could be 95% confident is was say 12% +/- 2% for example * Not the actual confidence limits

I was also struck by some of the other stats.

Hear! Hear!

No, no here here.
2021: lab leak= conspiracy
2023: lab leak= likely

2021: doubtful efficacy of vaccine= conspiracy
2023: doubtful efficacy of vaccine=
widely considered to be questionable

2021: lockdown protects us all
2923: lockdown “might” have protected the very elderly and obese and otherwise unwell in some cases, but it fucked millions more in terms of education, healthcare, society, small businesses etc etc

And the list goes on! Nobody’s laughing at the conspiracy theories now. We just rather embarrassedly ignore them, because it turns out they were likely correct.

It was a survey of 2274 adults - which is typical of standard opinion polls

I've just polled the 6 people in my living room and 100% of them wouldn't do a poll on conspiracy theories 💁🏻‍♀️

Only certain types of people do polls.

Opinion polls have been around for a long time on all sorts of opinions.

Opinion polls have been around for a long time on all sorts of opinions

Of course! Not sure what your point is though

Threaten people they'll die if they don't comply and impose draconian social sanctions.

How do you get millions to comply though without instilling fear?

I'm in the US but my oldest son with Covid heart damage wishes it was a hoax.

That seems pretty reasonable really. I find it hard to believe we are the only planet in the universe with life. I'm less sure they have been here, or around the cover ups but some of the IS military footage is hard to explain.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/inside-wuhan-lab-covid-pandemic-china-america-qhjwwwvm0

It's almost statistically impossible that they don't exist.

The stupid are always with us. I am surprised the figure is as low as a quarter.

That's the thing, if scientists are correct with regards to the size of the galaxies how can we be the only planet.

Asystole.

@1dayatatime

Do I believe that young people and children and their education were thrown under a bus to reduce deaths in the over 80s - yes

Young people and children were at little risk yet could still transmit the virus to those of higher risk - the vulnerable and elderly.

If the statement was reversed (in a separate pandemic), what would your answer be? eg. Do I believe the vulnerable and elderly were thrown under the bus to reduce deaths in young people and children?

Can argue with a theorist I tried 😂 it got to the point that earth was flat and cameras on satellites had cones over them to make it look round, I was so frustrated went round in circles twisted everything. Ended up then stating they believed no one can even make it into space and there is an ocean in the sky and also Antarctica has an ice wall and beyond it lives aliens 😭 I'm not joking! They don't believe in God or any religion though that's far fetched 😂.

As for covid, it is real, follows the trajectory or pretty much every virus and also the path of most historic pandemics. It's an RNA virus which is unstable so mutates rapidly and a lot more, the vaccine has no chips 😂 it hasn't got the dead virus in it because that wouldn't work on this type of virus, you have to keep having boosters because as it's unstable it changes each time it replicates, so overtime the immune response in your body won't recognise the newer strains.

Obviously the government may have not acted correctly, they are not scientists or doctors, they are politicians. If an unknown virus was ravaging my country I would probably panic and just isolate everyone, a curfew in history is what irradiated rabies from England. It wasn't completely illogical.

But given that no one can trust the government to be honest or transparent it's easy for people to theorise, then the more the distrust spreads the bigger the theories get. Rather than politicians assuming everyone is dumb, they could give access to the logic behind their thoughts and people might then back them. Like we can't do this because if I divert funds here, xyz can effect this area of our economy. Rather then I'll tell the public I will do it in words that I can twist and cause a loop hole whilst focusing on a completely different issue that is achievable... they could just tell us. I find people don't mind things not going to plan or being told no, if they understand the reasonings.

with almost a quarter of the population believing Covid-19 was probably or definitely a hoax, polling has revealed.

Sadly, a quarter of the population are thick.

LifeIsPainHighness · Yesterday 14:36
WuTangGran · Yesterday 12:58

According to this survey, a half of Britons think aliens exist: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/06/25/half-britons-think-aliens-exist-and-7-claim-have-s

“Why is that so radical? Do you really think in the whole entire universe we are the only planet with life?”

Quite. I’ve heard highly respected astronomers, astrophysicists, etc. saying it’s more likely than not. I know nothing about those subjects. The whole space thing blows my mind but common sense tells me that earth can’t be the only planet with life. Hardly a radical idea/conspiracy.

My DH died of Covid in April. It's definitely not a hoax.🙁

Blunt but that's about the size of it!

2274 people asked online and then data was given weighting for age/location/etc.

That's not a clear methodology and doesn't explain where they were found, never mind how the results were tweaked to extrapolate the findings to the entire population.

Looks pretty - perfect for tabloid screengrabs, as the pages aren't complicated by actual data beyond a year 3 bar chart.

This is an attempt to be clever by the Guardian. They've deliberately written about 3 obvious examples of loony conspiracy theories and then included one which isn't at all, or at least not fully, to have it swept along as "most of us sane people really know it's conspiracy nonsense".

@bumblebee2235

"Obviously the government may have not acted correctly, they are not scientists or doctors, they are politicians. If an unknown virus was ravaging my country I would probably panic and just isolate everyone, a curfew in history is what irradiated rabies from England. It wasn't completely illogical."

+++

You are correct that the government are not scientists but politicians. The job of scientists is to explain to their best ability the severity of the new virus and how it transmits . Different scientists may also have different opinions. It is then the job of modellers to give their best estimates / forecasts of death tolls in different scenarios and again different modellers would give different forecasts.

However it is the job of politicians to not panic and to act in the best interests of the entire country, performing a cost benefit analysis to ensure that the counter measures to Covid are not more harmful than the virus itself. And yes this also involves modelling/ forecasts.

Lastly dog licensing, euthanasia of strays and muzzling contributed to the elimination of rabies from the UK by 1920 not a curfew.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevalenceoff_rabies#:~:text=Dog%20licensing%2C%20euthanasia%20of%20stray,rabies%20in%20many%20developed%20countries.

People were asked to absorb and understand a lot of complex, fast moving information at a time of great isolation and stress. It is not surprising some decided it was easier to think it was all a big conspiracy.

Conspiracies are also comforting, it is nice to believe someone is in control when the world is scary and uncertain, even if you think that control is malign.

The truth is scarier IMO A shit thing happened, we struggled, often ineptly, to understand and control the impact of the shit thing. We got incrementally better at controlling and understanding it but made some bad and stupid mistakes on the way.

I would encourage all those who have no suspicion whatsoever about 15 minutes cities and the climate agenda should definitely dig deeper into the issues, starting with the UN Agenda 2030.
This is a great introduction from Sandi Adams