Original article (in Bosnian) was published on 08/06/2026; Author: Elma Murić
What are the claims?
The FIFA World Cup is the perfect stage for simulating a mass infection. Everyone vaccinated against Covid-19 will test positive for hantavirus.
What are the facts?
Covid-19 vaccines do not cause hantavirus infection or positive hantavirus test results. Apart from routine public health measures typical of such large events, there will be no mass testing at the World Cup.
On May 22, 2026, the Telegram channel “Novo doba starih ratnika” shared a post claiming that the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the United States, Canada, and Mexico would serve as the “perfect stage” for simulating a mass infection. The post referred to this alleged simulation as “Exercise Polaris II.”
2026 FIFA World Cup.
Is this map simply showing the host cities, or will it ultimately become a map of the spread? Sixteen cities, three countries, millions of travelers – the perfect stage for what some “independent researchers” call “Exercise Polaris II”: a simulation of mass infection.
The following day, these claims, together with a map of the tournament’s host cities, were also shared in a Facebook post. That post additionally claimed:
Considering the global rate of COVID-19 “infections,” imagine how many positive “cases” can be detected and then used to justify “undeniable” coercive measures… BECAUSE: Every person vaccinated against COVID-19 will test positive for hantavirus! Every vaccinated person who is currently ill and tested for hantavirus will have a 99.9% positive result.
What is Exercise “Polaris II”?
Exercise “Polaris II” has nothing to do with the 2026 FIFA World Cup hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The World Health Organization (WHO) conducted this two-day global pandemic simulation in April 2026. The event, called Exercise Polaris II, took place on April 22 – 23. On April 27, WHO published a statement describing the exercise, which noted the following:
The World Health Organization (WHO) has concluded Exercise Polaris II, a two-day high-level simulation exercise based on the outbreak of a fictional novel bacterium spreading around the world. Bringing together 26 countries and territories, 600 health emergency experts, and more than 25 partner organizations, the exercise, held on April 22 – 23, enabled countries to test their preparedness for pandemics and other major health emergencies, including activating emergency workforce structures, information-sharing mechanisms, and coordination with one another, partners, and WHO.
The statement also emphasized that the exercise built upon the success of Exercise Polaris I, held in April 2025, which focused on a fictional virus.
It is therefore clear that WHO did not simulate the emergence of a new virus in April 2026, but rather the outbreak of a fictional new bacterium, and that the exercise was intended to strengthen preparedness for public health emergencies. Both exercises are part of the Horizon X programme, designed to operationalize and test emergency response frameworks under realistic conditions.
Claims that the FIFA World Cup will provide an opportunity to declare the next pandemic resemble earlier conspiracy theories about staged pandemics. Raskrinkavanje has repeatedly analyzed such false claims, including assertions that the European Commission rehearsed the Covid-19 pandemic, that a 2021 exercise proved the monkeypox outbreak had been planned, or that the World Economic Forum planned a future “Disease X” pandemic through simulation exercises.
This time, two events have been used to revive narratives about “planned pandemics”: the upcoming FIFA World Cup and the hantavirus outbreak aboard the Dutch cruise ship MV Hondius in April 2026.
It is true that, following the hantavirus cases on the MV Hondius, public attention focused on potential health risks associated with the large number of spectators expected to travel to the United States, Mexico, and Canada for one of the world’s biggest sporting events.
On May 13, the American network CBS reported that health officials were strengthening preparedness measures while monitoring the recent hantavirus outbreak, along with other potential public health threats ahead of the tournament. Alister Martin, Commissioner for Health at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, told CBS that the public risk posed by hantavirus remained extremely low. Health officials in Kansas City, one of the host cities, likewise stated that there was no immediate risk of infectious disease outbreaks for residents but emphasized that local health departments were prioritizing preparedness for communicable diseases as well as the extreme heat expected during that period.
In late May, CBC reported that the United States, Mexico, and Canada had also announced plans to coordinate public health measures for travelers arriving from African regions with the highest Ebola risk, with the aim of protecting residents and visitors throughout the weeks-long tournament.
These reports make it clear that the World Cup host countries are strengthening public health preparedness ahead of the event while emphasizing that the risk of hantavirus transmission remains extremely low. No hantavirus testing programme has been announced.
In previous analyses of misinformation surrounding the hantavirus outbreak aboard the Dutch cruise ship, we noted that epidemiologists stressed there was “a very low likelihood that hantavirus would spread on a large scale, meaning there is no pandemic threat in this case” (1, 2).
False links between hantavirus and Covid-19 vaccines
Following the hantavirus outbreak on the MV Hondius, social media was flooded with disinformation, including attempts to misleadingly connect the incident to the Covid-19 pandemic and Covid-19 vaccines. Claims that everyone vaccinated against Covid-19 would test positive for hantavirus stem from earlier viral allegations that “hantavirus infection is a side effect of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine” and that this is supposedly documented in Pfizer’s own files. These claims are not supported by the evidence, as Raskrinkavanje thoroughly explained in an analysis published on May 15 this year.
That analysis pointed out that, in Pfizer’s vaccine documentation, hantavirus pulmonary infection is not listed as a vaccine side effect. Instead, it appears on a list of reported adverse events – that is, medical conditions occurring after vaccination. Reported adverse events are not necessarily caused by vaccination.
On May 19, AFP Fact Check published an analysis in which infectious disease and immunology experts commented on claims that mRNA vaccines supposedly cause hantavirus infection:
Pfizer’s Covid mRNA vaccines “contain neither live nor inactivated viruses and therefore cannot transmit any viral infection,” Dr. Wilson Lam Wai-shun, president of the Hong Kong Society for Infectious Diseases, told AFP on May 14.
Stefan Vieths, president of Germany’s Paul Ehrlich Institute, stated on May 11 that the German federal medical agency “is not aware of any mechanism by which approved mRNA vaccines could cause hantavirus infection.”
“There is no evidence to suggest that Covid-19 vaccines weaken the immune system or make individuals more susceptible to infection with other viruses.”
These findings clearly show that claims asserting all people vaccinated against Covid-19 will test positive for hantavirus are false.
The claims were also analyzed in June this year by the Montenegrin fact-checking platform Raskrinkavanje.
Therefore, claims that mass hantavirus testing will take place during the FIFA World Cup and that everyone vaccinated against Covid-19 will test positive are entirely fabricated. Furthermore, none of these claims has any connection to Exercise Polaris II, which was organized by the World Health Organization in April this year. This is a classic example of conspiracy thinking, drawing artificial links between unrelated events in an attempt to reinforce an earlier disinformation narrative.
According to the facts, we assess claims that the FIFA World Cup will be used to stage a hantavirus pandemic as a conspiracy theory. The earliest post claiming that everyone vaccinated against Covid-19 will test positive for hantavirus, we rate as fake news and a conspiracy theory. We rate all the subsequent posts as spreading fake news and a conspiracy theory.
