Text message rumors of a national #quarantine are FAKE. There is no national lockdown. @CDCgov has and will continue to post the latest guidance on #COVID19. #coronavirus — NSC (@WHNSC) March 16, 2020

Two of the six American officials who the NYT spoke with said they don’t believe the Chinese operatives created the lockdown messages but amplified existing ones. “The origin of the messages remains murky,” the NYT wrote.

Still, the officials believe China is borrowing Russia’s strategies to widen political divisions in the US and undermine confidence in the federal government. The officials are also reportedly concerned about disinformation aimed at Europeans that pro-China actors may have helped spread.

In response to these allegations, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said in a statement, “The relevant statements are complete nonsense and not worth refuting.”

Regardless of where the messages originated, disinformation campaigns are a growing problem and threat to society, and we have seen China-backed accounts spread misinformation in the past. False and misleading info related to the COVID-19 pandemic was an immediate concern, and several platforms, including Facebook and Google, have taken steps to limit its proliferation. But those efforts only go so far, and they don’t stop scammers from attempting to take advantage of the disaster.