A/77/512 identified Jews as having manufactured or spread COVID-19 to advance global control. Stigmatization and conspiracy theories exploit historical tropes of rac ialized fears of disease. For example, as far back as the fourteenth century, Jews were falsely accused of poisoning wells to spread bubonic plague. In a similar vein, one submission received by the Special Rapporteur described an explosion of antisemitic conspiracy theories that began to populate social media as soon as news emerged of a dangerous new virus spreading across the world. 61. News outlets and social media platforms worldwide reported variations of antisemitic conspiracy theories. Attacks on Jewish religious sites, assaults on Jewish individuals, attempts to deliberately infect Jewish individuals with COVID-19 and violent threats against Jewish individuals on social media were also reported, as described by the Special Rapporteur in her report (ibid.). F. Anti-Asian and anti-black racism, Islamophobia and attacks on non-nationals in relation to the origin and propagation of COVID-19 62. In her report to the seventy-fifth session of the General Assembly, the Special Rapporteur also highlighted the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on other groups affected by racism and related intolerance (ibid.). The rise in antisemitism, linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, as described above, must be understood in the context of broad and rampant racism and other forms of hatred and intolerance affecting other groups as well. Extremists were ready and able to exploit the fear and confusion that accompanied the pandemic, particularly in its early stages. 63. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed interlinking crises that had been hiding in plain sight: a public health disaster, and ethnonationalist rhetoric and politics – the latter driving impacts of and responses to the former. It laid bare how dangerous climates of intolerance, racialized and religious suspicion and fear can be to the social fabric that sustains prosperous and safe communities. As populist regimes and extremists exploit and fuel anxieties about the pandemic, it has become increasingly clear how and why ethnonationalism is not just a fringe problem; it affects the very structures that are supposed to undergird liberal institutions. 64. Submissions for the previous report of the Special Rapporteur (ibid.) and countless news and human rights reports were rife with examples of the wid espread discrimination, harassment and assault – online and physical – against persons of Chinese or Asian descent. 65. Politicians also exploited and fuelled anxieties about the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, in what was an all-too-familiar attempt to normalize xenophobia and racism as reasonable reactions to COVID-19, some dubbed it the “Wuhan flu” or the “China flu”. 66. As already noted, such racist tropes and disinformation feed into pre-existing and underlying biases or prejudices, and has not been limited to East Asians and Jews. As described in the previous report of the Special Rapporteur (ibid.), incidences of Islamophobia, anti-Roma sentiments and discrimination against Palestinians in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic were also reported. 67. The manifestations of racism, xenophobia and related intolerance during the pandemic undermined effective public health responses. The ubiquitous antisemitic conspiracy theories and neo-Nazi and other ethnonationalist fear-mongering and hatred had a grave impact on the ability to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. A study undertaken in 2020 showed that people who held COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs would be less likely to comply with social distancing guidelines or take up future vaccines. 22-22915 13/20