Anti-Vaxxers Are Flipping Out Over Justin Bieber’s Facial Paralysis
On Friday, Justin Bieber took to Instagram to reveal to his fans that he would have to cancel upcoming dates for his world tour due to health issues.
The health issue, he said during his Instagram Live, was a diagnosis of Ramsay Hunt Syndrome, a complication of the shingles virus that results in facial paralysis.
Ramsay Hunt is triggered by the varicella-zoster virus, the same virus that causes shingles, which is in turn caused by the same virus that causes chicken pox.
Bieber’s health disclosure prompted a flurry of explainers across the internet, with many news outlets explaining what Ramsay Hunt Syndrome is.
It also prompted anti-vaxxers to wildly speculate, based on very limited evidence, that Bieber had contracted the virus as a result of getting the Covid-19 vaccine.
Many also connected Bieber’s illness with the fact that his wife, Hailey Bieber, developed a blood clot that traveled to her brain, requiring her to have surgery back in March