“The pancebo effect is when a person begins to worry that the worst is about to happen without valid evidence. It’s panic over logic.”

This article at Huffpost was written by a Canadian in the early days of the virus (where were you on the 2nd of March?). Of course it reads as naive and uninformed right now, in August, but we include it because it’s the first time we’ve come across the term ‘pancebo’, which remains topical. This was not, perhaps, the author’s intent, since he was referring to a kind of fear-panic (a ‘nocebo’) inspired by the emergence of Covid-19. Instead, these days, it might better refer to the rash of crazy conspiracy theories that crowd our newsfeeds. It’s still about fear, but the ‘pancebo effect’ of fear of the virus seems to have been translated into a generalised fear of authority figures, health officials, government and anyone who can be vaguely associated with the panglobal lizard people who are ‘really’ in control.