This research smells so bad. It does not read as professional science at all. It is incredibly politicized and permeated with political judgements regarding which worldviews and demographics are 'problematic' to society.
>Conspiracy theories undermined global efforts to contain the COVID-19 virus during the pandemic
was maybe ironic. Listening to the people at the start who said it was likely a lab screw up rather than dismissing them as conspiracy theorists might have led to better efforts to contain it.
(for those interested here's the then head of the US CDC talking about being blocked from going over to help contain it and similar things https://youtu.be/oMlhvnMpRU0?t=119)
2. The first death from the virus was in January and it was less than 2 weeks later the first confirmed case was in the US. I think we forget how fast this thing went from novel pneumonia in Wuhan to potential world-wide pandemic. Maybe a head start on shutting down the borders would have delayed things a bit, but there would have been zero appetite to shut down everything in January 2020.
3. There absolutely were conspiracy theories that undermined efforts to contain Covid. E.G. the vaccine heralded end times and was the mark of the beast, or people would start dropping dead from the vaccine and it was part of the Great Reset etc. Or that the bans on gatherings were intended to stop religion, Covid didn't even really exist and it was part of a plan to institute a new world order, etc.