Creating Pandemics 101: Propaganda mastermind reveals secret tactics

A 2019 video has resurfaced showing Belgium’s Dr. Marc Van Ranst explaining how to create a pandemic through effective propaganda. 

Van Ranst, who is currently a professor of virology at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, was tapped by the Belgian government to prepare the country for the influenza pandemic in 2007, which meant selling the pandemic to the Belgian people. 

Speaking at the ESWI/Chatham House Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Stakeholders Conference in January 2019, Van Ranst discussed some of his methods. 

Media 

The former flu commissioner said that the first day of announcing a pandemic is the most critical because you need to dominate the conversation in the press. 

“Day one is the most important,” he said. “In day one you start your communication with the press and the people and you have to do it right. I mean you have to go for one voice, one message.” 

“You have to be omnipresent that first day or the first days so that you attract the media attention,” he added. “You make an agreement with them that you will tell them all and if they call, you will pick up the phone. And when you do that, you can profit from those early days to get complete carpet coverage of the field, and they’re not going to search for alternative voices there.” 

If the government has a good relationship with the media, he said, officials simply approach anchors and ask them to participate in “infomercials” promoting the government’s messaging. 

Public concern 

Van Ranst also made sure that calls to the pandemic hotline were analyzed to find out which were the most common questions being asked by the public. He would then work those questions into interviews with the mainstream media. One of those questions was “Is it safe to travel?” which Van Ranst quelled by declaring an emergency. 

One of the reasons the Belgian government chose Van Ranst as the pandemic’s spokesman was because he was not a politician, a fact which staved off political attacks. 

The other reason was that he could take advantage of the public’s naiveté. 

“The second advantage is that you can play in Brussels the complete naïve guy and get a lot more done than you would otherwise be able to do.” 

Death rates 

It is also important, said Van Ranst, to stoke fear by predicting mortality rates, even if they’re within the norm. For the flu pandemic, Van Ranst warned that seven influenza deaths per day were expected. 

“That is true in every year,” Van Ranst said to laughter. “Even pandemically, that is very, very conservative. 

“However, talking about fatalities is important because when you say that people say, ‘Wow, what do you mean, people die because of influenza?’ And then of course days later you had the first H1N1 death in the country and the scene was set.” 

Vaccines 

Vaccines are the most important part of the campaign, says Van Ranst, and it invited the most questions. 

He used certain tactics to allay fears of running out of vaccines, such as showing vaccine stockpiles and vowing to be the last to get vaccinated. 

At one point, a Belgium soccer team made waves after it vaccinated its players preferentially, when only at-risk groups were getting the vaccine. Van Ranst used that to showcase the desirability of the shot and promote the vaccine. 

Van Ranst noted that there was opposition to the vaccine, but did not explain how that was handled.

Belgium’s propaganda during the COVID-19 pandemic was not enough to prevent Brussels from breaking out in widespread protests against harsh government mandates, to which police responded violently using water cannons and tear gas.