COVID-19 vaccine skeptics latch on to Kate Middleton’s disappearance
As conspiracies surrounding Kate Middleton's public absence continue to swirl—anti-vaxxers and proponents of misinformation finally emerged from the woodwork.
"Kate Middleton is vaccine injured. But one cannot speak about vaccine injury without getting banned from polite society," claimed one X user without evidence. "So the British royal family does dumb sh*te like hiding her for months and then badly photoshopping a picture to make it look like everything is okay. Nothing is okay. Vaccines are wrecking humanity."
The Princess of Wales has not made any public appearances since Christmas and her prolonged absence—which Kensington Palace says is due to her recovering from a planned abdominal surgery in January—resulted in all sorts of theories. Speculation included possible marital problems between her and Prince William and that she is in a coma following complications from surgery. Then, a recently botched editing job only fanned the flames something sinister was happening.
But it appears the conspiracy, which has been unfolding on social media for months, is just now gaining steam among anti-vaxxers, who frequently (and generally baselessly) attribute celebrities' health issues and the like to the COVID-19 vaccine.
"Let's just put it this way -- if it WASN'T vaccine injury, they would have already told us what it is," the same X user claimed, arguing that her abdominal surgery pointed to COVID vaccine complications.
Another person posted a photo of Middleton receiving the vaccine in 2021, asking, "Kate Middleton got the covid jab and now she's disappeared. Coincidence?"
Another conspiracist wrote: "What if Kate Middleton had a stroke due to the Covid jab? Hard to cover that up for too long."
There is no evidence to suggest Middleton's disappearance is in any way related to the vaccine she received almost three years ago.
More than 270 million people in the U.S. have received at least one dose of the COVID vaccine and serious side effects are extremely rare, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"People receiving COVID-19 vaccines are less likely to die from COVID-19 and its complications and are at no greater risk of death from non-COVID causes, than unvaccinated people," the CDC states.
But it's not just anti-vaxxers tying COVID-related theories to Middleton. Some social media users are going the opposite route.
"My Kate Middleton theory is she has long covid. The palace can’t admit it because then they’d have to admit covid is still a major issue," wrote one person with the hashtag "CovidIsNotOver."
"I'm honestly wondering if Kate Middleton died of Covid, and THAT is what they're hiding," wrote another user along with a graphic depicting increasing COVID hospitalizations in the U.K.
"I bet Kate Middleton has long covid," said someone else.
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