HILLBILLY FEVERS:

In the UK, the British National Socialist Movement has disseminated a poster on messenger app Telegram titled "What To Do If You Get Covid-19". The advice it proffers is about as far from socially beneficial as you could imagine, encouraging those infected to visit local mosques and synagogues, as well as spending time in 'diverse neighbourhoods' and on public transport. Anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim sentiments interwoven with the intended exploitation of a national health crisis.

Blaming migrants for the virus has also been a feature of this crisis. The British alt-right figure Paul Joseph Watson, for instance, authored an article stating that the coronavirus 'patient zero' in Italy was a Pakistani migrant who refused to self-isolate after testing positive for COVID-19. However, there is no solid scientific evidence to support this claim, with the authorities continuing to encounter difficulties in tracing an identifiable 'patient zero' in Italy, which now has a COVID-19 death toll of 7,503.

In the United States, far-right actors are capitalising on the coronavirus outbreak to peddle a variety of divisive and unfounded conspiracies. American neo-Nazis on social media platforms such as Telegram - including 'accelerationists' who seek to bring an end to liberal democratic society and the establishment of a white ethno-state - are deep in discussion over how to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic in order to recruit young people to their cause.

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