The death of a 28-year-old Russian lab worker at Siberia’s Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute has sparked online panic about a ‘plague’, despite the WHO assessing the public health risk in Russia as low. Unverified claims about how she became ill, including a laboratory accident involving a test tube, are circulating online. Misleading posts and out-of-context videos have also fuelled speculation and fear. Vedika Bahl goes through them, and what we know, in Truth or Fake.