Conspiracy theories as barriers to controlling the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S.

The COVID-19 pandemic poses extraordinary challenges to public health. Because the novel coronavirus is highly contagious, the widespread use of preventive measures such as masking, physical distancing, and eventually vaccination is needed to bring it under control. We hypothesized that accepting conspiracy theories that were circulating in mainstream and social media early in the COVID-19 pandemic in the US would be negatively related to the...