Isolation, Social Distancing, and the End Times

Reactions to a Twenty-first Century Pandemic

Abstract

The Novel Coronavirus (also known as COVID-19) caused the systematic isolation of countries and lockdown of their citizens around the world. The high infection rate, and the rapidly climbing death tolls from both prepared and unprepared countries, caused consternation. Global economic uncertainty surrounded the virus, and reactions from individuals and communities were unpredictable, and in cases, unprecedented. This article considers the reactions and the responses to COVID-19 from people who tended towards right-leaning groups, primarily (but not limited) to those within conspiracist milieus, in the United States. These 
individuals and groups utilized the pandemic to push narratives that strengthened their own existence and planned future political actions. I will also examine reactions from religious organizations that deemed the virus to be non-existent (fraudulent or not harmful to the saved), arguing that the power of prayer and God will keep their members safe. This includes those who sold ‘miracle cures’ (including bleach, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, two anti-malarial drugs) to their parishioners in times of great uncertainty. This article aims to clarify and explain the ways individuals and groups utilized the uncertainty in order to further entrench their own narratives and worldviews, often for financial gain. It also separates strands of resistance to government measures according to the classifications religious, conspiracist, and religio-conspiracist.