Russian lab worker’s death sparks plague fears as unverified claims spread online

The death of a 28-year-old Russian lab worker at Siberia’s Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute has sparked online panic about a ‘plague’, despite the WHO assessing the public health risk in Russia as low. Unverified claims about how she became ill, including a laboratory accident involving a test tube, are circulating online. Misleading posts and out-of-context videos have also fuelled speculation and fear. Vedika Bahl goes through them, and what we know, in Truth or Fake. The World Health Organization said Tuesday that it considers the public health risk in Russia to be “low”, and “very low” for Europe. But that has not stopped fears and misinformation from spreading on social media. Russian media identified the woman as 28-year-old Daria Shipilova, a laboratory technician at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia and Far East. The exact circumstances of her death remain unclear, although reports say she died two days after falling ill at work. Several theories have emerged online about how she may have become sick. One claims she dropped a test tube containing live pathogens at the laboratory. Others suggest she fell ill following a field trip near the Mongolian border, or after ...