Fox News Viewers Increasingly Believe Covid-19 Conspiracy Theory

A new Axios/Ipsos poll finds that people who get their news from Fox News are more likely to buy into a conspiracy theory that has frequently been spread by right-wing media since the pandemic began: The false and baseless idea that the coronavirus death count has been inflated.

The poll found that 62 percent of Fox News watchers said the real number of coronavirus deaths is lower than the official number, closely aligning with 59 percent of Republicans. By contrast, only 9 percent of Democrats and 31 percent of Americans overall professed this view.

And this figure is going up, too: When the poll previously asked this question in May, it showed 44 percent of Fox News watchers and 40 percent of Republicans thought the deaths were over-counted, compared to just seven percent of Democrats and 23 percent of Americans overall. Continue reading.