[imagesource: Heather Fulbright / CNN]

I spoke to a friend living in New York this past weekend.

She describes the current situation in America as “nightmarish”.

Between the people protesting any form of lockdown, the bizarre conspiracy theories, and churchgoers who believe that their faith will keep them safe, it has been difficult to contain the spread of the virus.

As these conspiracy theories abound, most people are able to brush them off as the workings of an unsound mind. Donald Trump’s claims that injecting disinfectant would cure the virus was met with ridicule, and fears that some of his supporters might actually try it.

(At the very least, health hotline calls about whether the treatment would work have spiked.)

For one woman, however, a conspiracy theory advanced by YouTube wack job, George Webb, is ruining her life.

Per CNN:

Maatje Benassi (above), a US Army reservist and mother of two, has become the target of conspiracy theorists who falsely place her at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, saying she brought the disease to China.

Despite having tested negative for the disease, she and her husband are now at the centre of a worldwide conspiracy theory, spreading via social media, that claims that she is patient zero.

Discussion boards in both the US and China are devoting a lot of time and attention to the theory.

“It’s like waking up from a bad dream going into a nightmare day after day,” Maatje Benassi told CNN Business in an exclusive interview, the first time she has spoken publicly since being smeared online.

In March, months after the coronavirus took hold in Wuhan, China, attention turned to Benassi.

The baseless theory began with her participation in October in the Military World Games, essentially the military Olympics, which was hosted by Wuhan, the Chinese city where the coronavirus outbreak began last year.

Maatje Benassi competed in the cycling competition there, suffering an accident on the final lap that left her with a fractured rib and a concussion. Despite the crash, Benassi still finished the race, but it turned out to be the start of something worse.

Despite being one of the hundreds of athletes from the US, she was singled out. George Webb, who has amassed thousands of followers on YouTube, not only claimed that she was patient zero, but that her husband, and Italian DJ Benny Benassi, who says he has never met the couple, were all part of an elaborate plot connected to the virus.

In a phone interview with CNN Business on Thursday, which he livestreamed to his followers on YouTube, Webb offered no substantive evidence to support his claims about the Benassis and said he considered himself an “investigative reporter,” not a conspiracy theorist.

This man is clearly delusional, but that hasn’t stopped his theories from having a real impact on the Benassis.

They have received death threats, and feel unsafe leaving their home. They’re concerned that this could culminate in another ‘Pizzagate’ which started with false claims and ended with a man firing a couple of rounds in a pizzeria. When they approached the authorities, they were afforded no help because of Webb’s right to “freedom of speech”.

I’ll leave you with Benassi, describing the situation in her own words:

The CNN story is a long read, but you can tackle it in full here.

[source:cnn]