“A new pandemic?” Behind her keyboard, Chloé* is choking. She sends a salvo of messages: “Have you heard of disease X?” she asks in one of them. “It’s scary, what’s that again?”, Can we still read on one of the Facebook discussion groups and turned around the Covid-19 that she follows. Another Internet user harangues his friends directly on his profile: “Get ready, no date but disease X will be the new pandemic. I say that, I say nothing. It promises”. To listen to them, a new virus would fall on the world.
What has these Internet users on the boil is really just a simple scientific formula used by the WHO (World Health Organization) to talk about the risk of an unknown disease spreading. The idea is included in the institution’s list of priority conditions, a document that guides the fight against pandemics. If Covid-19, Congo hemorrhagic fever or Ebola occupy specialists, the WHO regularly reminds scientists and States that we must also be able to react in the event of a pathology of which we know nothing. Hence the famous formulation of “disease X”.
No new pandemic, therefore, but a real panic has broken out online. For days, hundreds of social media accounts, some of which are followed by hundreds of thousands of people, have been somatizing. Until evoking a global conspiracy. From the Anglo-Saxon press to the French extreme right, the trajectory of this fake news bears witness to the fabric of disinformation, which far from emerging spontaneously in public debate, is often propagated by various opinion relays, for purposes connoisseurs of what the algorithms of the platforms put forward.
Before being distorted, the concept of disease X first resurfaced in the American press. Monday, May 22, the WHO held its general assembly. Between two announcements, the head of the institution explained to the podium that if the Covid-19 is no longer considered an “emergency”, the world must still prepare for the next pandemic, potentially more deadly. “When it knocks on the door – and it will – we must be ready to respond decisively, collectively and fairly,” he said then, without mentioning disease X at that time.
In dealing with the subject, some American media still decide to recall the WHO’s list of priority conditions, and therefore cite disease X, added in 2018 and since maintained during all the annual updates of the document. This is particularly the case of New York Post who, the day after the general assembly, decides to publish an article dedicated to this concept, the title of which surfs on the speech of the head of the WHO: “What is disease X? Experts warn that it could be deadlier than the Covid pandemic.”
Opinion relays that surf on ambiguities
Several French media engage: first the newspaper The Independent which mentions the New York Post. And also South Radio, which invites an expert on set. The fact remains that if the risk of such an epidemic is very real, neither theWHO nor do these headlines announce that disease X is about to strike or that it is spreading. Yet it is this idea that has begun to circulate. “Are you ready to get your mask out and lock down for ‘disease X that’s just around the corner’? […] At the WHO, they have vaccines ready to go out to vaccinate the planet. Just missing the diseases. It’s for June it seems. Because shareholders can’t wait. Summer will be hot,” posted a popular user on Twitter, Saturday night. The tweet is viewed more than 60,000 times.
Earlier in the day, a particularly influential account had already taken up the subject. On his social networks, Florian Philippot multiplies the publications. Of all the Internet users who mentioned disease X last week, he is the most followed. On Twitter, the former close friend of Marine Le Pen writes to his 380,000 followers: “covid no longer works, the WHO has now decided to agitate ‘disease X’, ‘very deadly’, ‘very contagious’ whose epidemic ‘will knock on our door’ and who can ‘grab us at the corner of the street’ (sic)! … Except that ‘disease X’ does not exist!”. A version far removed from the words of the boss of the WHO.
Very quickly, many accounts convey the idea of a plot, in response to the words of the politician. A user replies: “yes, yes, they are manufacturing it in the lab”. “It’s in the test tubes,” adds a second. On his channel Youtube, followed by half a million people, the former number two of the National Rally also undertakes to explain “how [l’OMS] tries to recreate the panic, an Xth time”. Here again, the interpretation seems very personal, with regard to the history of the concept. “You will very quickly understand the real reasons behind all this”, he begins, The mysterious air. Without ever explaining the approach of the WHO, he warns: “We must be on the alert. Behind it, it’s a big money affair, probably the risk of corruption, I warn, compared to a probable propaganda of fear to come “. The video totals more than 80,000 views.
If Florian Philippot cites the New York Post, he especially mentions a column published in the British daily The Telegraph which warns of the problems that could be caused by the emergence of an unknown disease. As if she had just left. Problem: the tribune actually dates from 2018. Regardless, its author is of particular interest to the politician. This is Richard Hatchett, chief executive of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a foundation created at the World Economic Forum in Davos and funded by the Bill-and-Melinda-Gates Foundation. “It’s important”, insists Florian Philippot, pressing on these last two structures, looking at the camera. Before approving, without any text explanation: “you understood everything.”
What did Florian Philippot mean? The emphasis is not trivial. There is a fanciful belief that the attendees of Davos and Bill Gates are plotting to subjugate the world. To do this, they would not hesitate to create fake pandemics. A refrain among followers of conspiracy theories since the publication of the book “The Great Reset”, by the founder of the World Economic Forum. The book analyzes the upheavals generated by the Covid-19 crisis. It is interpreted by the conspirators as a plan of the powerful to impose a “health dictatorship”. Without ever pronouncing the words conspiracies or conspiracies, Florian Philippot sketches the idea. It then only has to be taken back.
*Name has been changed