COVIDeniers: Anti-Science Coronavirus Denial Overlaps with Climate Denial

About the Series

The climate science denial machine created by the fossil fuel industry is now a major source of COVID-19 disinformation. Deniers have deployed many of the same tactics they have used to attack climate scientists and delay action to downplay the severity of the coronavirus outbreak and sow distrust in the response efforts of governments, scientists and the medical community — with deadly consequences that are now unfolding before our eyes. 

Others have used the threat of COVID-19 to argue against action to address climate change, which would leave us all more vulnerable to the wide array of future catastrophes that scientists say will result from additional degrees of warming.

In the following series, DeSmog presents the #COVIDenial evidence our team has gathered revealing the overlapping cast of characters who have long attacked climate science and are now spreading COVID misinformation, touting false cures, ginning up conspiracy theories and fomenting attacks on public health experts. We began tracking this overlap in March 2020, when Sharon Kelly wrote Meet the Climate Science Deniers Who Downplayed COVID-19 Risks.

Many of these groups, including Koch network-funded entities such as Americans for Prosperity and State Policy Network members have also attacked stay-at-home orders and orchestrated ‘Liberate’ movement protests nationwide, as Steve Horn wrote in COVID-19 ‘Liberate’ Groups Are the Same Ones Pushing Climate Denial. And as DeSmog UK’s Zak Derler reported in Climate Science Deniers Use Coronavirus to Downplay Environmental Threats, notorious climate deniers around the world are even claiming that the novel coronavirus pandemic is a hoax, or that it’s an evil plot by “globalist elites” like Bill Gates and George Soros to alternately force vaccines or a “world population cull.” 

These are dangerous operatives at work spreading all manner of doubt and delusion to confuse the public, and their actions and words will forever cement them on the wrong side of history.

Explore the report materials below, and please contact DeSmog with any other examples of COVID denial you come across.

In This Series

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The following individuals and groups, who have historically focused on denying or downplaying the risk of man-made global warming, have turned their attention to the COVID-19 crisis. This set of...
Series: COVIDeniers
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The following individuals and groups, who have historically focused on denying or downplaying the risk of man-made global warming, have turned their attention to the COVID-19 crisis. In many ...
Series: COVIDeniers
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Misinformation about the pandemic continues to pepper right-wing politicians’ talking points as the number of unvaccinated overcome by the virus fill the state’s hospital beds.

Misinformation about the pandemic continues to pepper right-wing politicians’ talking points as the number of unvaccinated overcome by the virus fill the state’s hospital beds.
Series: COVIDeniers
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An open letter that emerged earlier this month opposing COVID-19 shutdowns and calling for a “herd immunity” approach to addressing the coronavirus — which already has claimed over 220,000 American...
Series: COVIDeniers
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Late Thursday night, President Trump said on Twitter that he and first lady Melania Trump had both been diagnosed with Covid-19. The news came on the heels of reports that senior aide Hope Hicks ha...
Series: COVIDeniers
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The following UK-based individuals and groups have historically focused on denying or downplaying the risk of man-made global warming. In 2020, they have turned their attention to the COVID-19 pand...
Series: COVIDeniers
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The following individuals and groups, who have historically focused on denying or downplaying the risk of man-made global warming, have turned their attention to the COVID-19 crisis.  This set of ...
Series: COVIDeniers
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“Government should be doing little or next to nothing,” Richard Ebeling wrote in a post about COVID-19 republished on March 24 by the Heartland Institute. “The problem is a social and medical one, ...
Series: COVIDeniers
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The following individuals and groups, who have historically focused on denying or downplaying the risk of man-made global warming, have turned their attention to the COVID-19 crisis. This set of e...
Series: COVIDeniers
on

The following individuals and groups, who have historically focused on denying or downplaying the risk of man-made global warming, have turned their attention to the COVID-19 crisis. This set of e...
Series: COVIDeniers
on

The following individuals and groups, who have historically focused on denying or downplaying the risk of man-made global warming, have turned their attention to the COVID-19 crisis. In many cases,...
Series: COVIDeniers
on

The following individuals and groups, who have historically focused on denying or downplaying the risk of man-made global warming, have turned their attention to the COVID-19 crisis. This set of e...
Series: COVIDeniers
on

The following individuals and groups, who have historically focused on denying or downplaying the risk of man-made global warming, have turned their attention to the COVID-19 crisis. This set of e...
Series: COVIDeniers
on

The following individuals and groups, who have historically focused on denying or downplaying the risk of man-made global warming, have turned their attention to the COVID-19 crisis. This set of e...
Series: COVIDeniers
on

The following individuals and groups, who have historically focused on denying or downplaying the risk of man-made global warming, have turned their attention to the COVID-19 crisis. This set of e...
Series: COVIDeniers
on

The following individuals and groups, who have historically focused on denying or downplaying the risk of man-made global warming, have turned their attention to the COVID-19 crisis. This set of e...
Series: COVIDeniers
on

The following individuals and groups, who have historically focused on denying or downplaying the risk of man-made global warming, have turned their attention to the COVID-19 crisis. This set of e...
Series: COVIDeniers