A U.S. army reservist now lives in fear for her life after being tagged as the 'patient zero' of COVID-19 and as the one responsible for bringing the virus in Wuhan by an unfounded online conspiracy theory.
Describing it as a "nightmare," Maatje Benassi and her husband shared that the conspiracy theory circulated on Chinese social media and have been embraced by the Communist Party in Beijing.
According to Daily Mail, despite not exhibiting any symptoms and never tested positive, Benassi has been accused by conspiracy theorists of being the one who conspired with the U.S. government and brought the coronavirus to China in October of last year after competing as a cyclist in Military World Games.
After the release of the conspiracy theory in March, Benassi confessed that she has been inundated with death threats from believers of the said theory and even received ominous letters straight on her door after their home address was posted online.
In her first public interview after the spread of the theory, Benassi shared that it is like waking up from a bad dream going into a nightmare day after day.
Despite the efforts of technology giants such as Google and Facebook in taking down and blocking the circulation of any dangerous fallacies, just like coronavirus, misinformation about the pandemic mutated and still evolving each and every day.
Weeks after the outbreak, hundreds of conspiracy theories spread online, without any basis, most of them revolve about COVID-19 as a biological weapon created to wipe out enemies by the government of the United States.
Several months after the first coronavirus case that has been recorded in Wuhan, conspiracy theorists switched their attentions to Benassi, who is a civilian employee at the US army's Fort Belvoir in Virginia.
Five months before, Bennasi competed as a cyclist in Wuhan's Military World Games where she ended in a nasty crash on her final lap leaving her with a concussion and a broken rib, but the mother-of-two shared that what followed has been far more painful.
Followed by nearly 100,000 people and videos with 27 million views on his conspiracy channel, the 59-year-old fellow American Youtuber, George Webb has been one of the most vocal conspiracy theorists about the imaginary plot involving Benassi.
On his Youtube channel, Webb claims that the COVID-19 was manufactured in a facility owned by the US military and brought by Benassi during the Military Olympics.
After the uploads of Webb, inboxes of the couple started to receive tons of hateful and threatening messages from across the world and even strange letters have been posted through their front door with comments calling for their execution or killed by firing squad.
In other videos of Webb, he even claims that Benassi and Italian DJ Benny Benassi somehow conspired together to infect the world with the coronavirus.
Famed for his 2002 song 'Satisfaction,' the Italian DJ shared that he never met the American reservist or even her husband and clarified that they are not even related as far as they know.
Related article: Why Did China Cover-Up Coronavirus? Experts Reveal Reason
