Every few weeks, the hashtag #WheresTiffanyDover pops up on the more conspiratorial corners of social media.
Ms Dover, a nurse who lives in Alabama, was one of the first US frontline workers to get the Covid vaccine in 2020. As part of campaigns to build trust around the jab, the nurse was filmed getting her shot, but soon became the subject of ravenous conspiracy theorists when she fainted on camera.
Then, the mother and dedicated emergency room nurse seemed to vanish from the public eye, further fuelling baseless speculation about Ms Dover, her hospital, her family, and Covid vaccines at large.
“I didn’t die that day,” Ms Dover told NBC News, in her first extension interview since unintentionally becoming the centre of an anti-vax campaign. “But the life I knew did.”
The nurse explained to the network that she hadn’t had time for lunch the day she got the shot and she remains grateful for the vaccine, even though her experience getting it in the public nearly ruined her life.
“Yes, I did pass out. This could be a side effect. You can pass out from receiving a vaccine, but that’s OK because it can also save your life. So it’s worth it,” she said.
Her only regret is not speaking out sooner, she continued.
“The silence is what flamed this.”
As hospital executives at CHI Memorial Hospital Chattanooga recommended Ms Dover refrain from posting on social media, conspiracy theorists went wild. Soon, Ms Dover was the subject of Facebook groups, social media videos, podcast, QAnon theories. Family members and colleagues were berated with messages, accusing them of conspiring in some kind of cover-up. A colleague, Amber Honea, was accused of being a body-double.
Ms Dover wasn’t the only one whose personal experience was swept up in a wave of Covid misinformation.
Claire Bridges, an aspiring model from Tampa, Florida, became another unwitting avatar for the anti-vax movement.
A congenital heart condition exacerbated her experience with Covid, eventually causing her to suffer from rhabdomyolysis, in which damaged muscle tissue poisons the blood, requiring her to have both of her legs amputated below the knee.
Conspiracy theorists used Ms Bridge’s story to make false claims about the risk of vaccines overall.
“I felt true rage — that someone was telling my story, they didn’t even ask permission, they weren’t even telling it correctly, and they were using it to push a personal agenda,” Ms Bridges told HuffPost of the experience. “You’re forgetting the fact that I’m a human.”
“My legs were amputated due to COVID/[rhabdomyolysis], not the vaccine,” she told the site in January. “For anyone who doesn’t have any of the facts to say anything different than that, is extremely rude, harmful and disrespectful.”
