Foreign influence efforts, including disinformation campaigns, have long been a tool of our adversaries, and they remain so today with COVID-19. The National Counterintelligence Strategy identifies foreign influence as an enduring threat to our nation. dni.gov/files/NCSC/doc… 
In classic “dezinformatsiya” campaign in 1980s, KGB introduced idea that US govt created AIDS. The opening salvo was launched in 1983 when an obscure newspaper in India, the Patriot, printed an anonymous letter: “AIDS may invade India: Mystery disease caused by US experiments.”
The Patriot letter went largely unnoticed, but subsequent Soviet disinformation efforts paid off. By late 1987, the falsehood that U.S. govt created AIDS had circulated in the media of 80 countries, appearing in over 200 periodicals in 25 languages. See: cia.gov/library/center…
This month, the Chinese Communist Party introduced the idea that US govt was responsible for bringing COVID-19 to China. Among the opening salvos was a March 12 tweet from China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, “It might be US Army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan.”
NCSC Director Bill Evanina: “Foreign adversaries and others are pursuing a range of disinformation efforts to sow confusion & exploit fears of COVID-19. Everyone should vet their information on COVID-19 and only rely on trusted sources.” See CDC: cdc.gov/coronavirus/20…
