Atascadero City Council candidate uses QAnon phrase, blames COVID-19 spike on protests
The publisher of the Atascadero News, who’s running for a seat on the City Council, wrote a series of columns in July that blamed protesters for San Luis Obispo County’s coronavirus spike, called the virus “overhyped,” and used a phrase linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory.
Nicholas Mattson, who also serves as editor-at-large for the newspaper, authored a four-part opinion series that appeared in the Atascadero News starting on July 9 and continuing through July 30.
Mattson is one of five candidates running for four-year seat on the Atascadero City Council. He filed his candidate intention statement Form 501 on July 28, just before the last installment of his series was published, according to the Atascadero elections website. He previously made an unsuccessful run for mayor in 2016.
Mattson told The Tribune that his wife, Hayley Mattson, is now in charge of the newspaper’s content, and he hasn’t been involved with the editorial team since he filed papers to run for office.
His series, titled “House on Fire,” describes his views on the coronavirus pandemic, his opinion of officials’ response to the virus and his belief that the nationwide anti-racism protests that began at the end of May contributed to a spike in COVID-19 cases.
“Anyone who supports protests before we see the end of COVID-19 danger supports virus spread and death of people in our nursing homes,” Mattson wrote in Part Three of the series.
Mattson declined to respond to Tribune questions about the coronavirus beliefs he wrote about in his columns.
Unfounded links between protests, COVID-19 case spike
In the columns, Mattson claims, without evidence, that anti-racism demonstrations — which started in San Luis Obispo on May 31 — caused the jump in COVID-19 cases that occurred in June.
“Despite the disinterest of health departments to document attendance at protests and rallies, the statistics narrate a clear story,” Mattson wrote in Part One. “Multiple weeks of reopening the economy resulted in no observable rise in COVID-19 cases, while 10 days after protests where thousands gathered set off a chain reaction that led to record numbers around the country and in our own SLO County.”
In actuality, the protests started about the same time county businesses began to reopen, not weeks after.
Restaurants got the go-ahead to open for inside service about May 20, and bars and gyms were allowed to reopen about June 12, according to Tribune stories.
George Floyd died in the custody of Minneapolis police on May 25, setting off protests nationwide. The first big protest in San Luis Obispo occurred on May 31, followed by a notable demonstration on June 1, when police used tear gas to disperse the crowd.
Contrary to Mattson’s claim, county Public Health Officer Dr. Penny Borenstein told The Tribune in an interview published on June 26 that her department had not seen any indication protests had led to the spike in cases.
“We have not seen numbers coming out of large gatherings,” Borenstein said. “We haven’t seen any, actually.”
There’s also no indication the Public Health Department has shown “disinterest” in understanding whether cases originated at demonstrations. Contact tracer Kristin Edler told The Tribune in August that workers tracking cases of the virus ask people who test positive about their whereabouts 48 hours before they began showing symptoms.
“Individuals are infectious 48 hours prior to becoming symptomatic, so we try to identify everywhere they’ve been, who they’ve been in contact with for the 48 hours prior, up until that moment,” Edler said.
The largest spike in COVID-19 cases also came well after San Luis Obispo’s biggest anti-racism protest drew about 3,000 people downtown on June 4.
In the month of June, 341 residents tested positive for COVID-19 — that number ballooned to 1,172 county cases in the month of July, prompting the state to once again shut down indoor services at restaurants, bars and other businesses.
In addition, the county communities that have experienced the largest number of COVID-19 cases per 10,000 residents are all areas that have seen few protests, including San Miguel, Nipomo, Shandon and Paso Robles.
Claims that the coronvirus is ‘overhyped’
In Part Four of the series, Mattson claims “the virus is not as deadly as it was feared to be — although it has proven to be unpleasant for many, others like myself were asymptomatic. We were challenged with fear, and government intervention.”
He also claims the pandemic is “overhyped” and that “spread of COVID-19 is a natural and healthy part of surviving the disease, and many people, like myself, contract the virus and their immune system defeats it without any visible symptoms.”
However, 22 county residents have died from coronavirus, including a person in their 30s and a person in their 50s with no underlying health conditions. As of Friday, more than 186,000 people across the country have died from COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Use of a QAnon phrase
At the close of the series, Mattson includes the acronym “WWG1WGA,” which stands for “where we go one, we go all.”
The acronym has been used widely by followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which has been spreading online since about 2017, according to a report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an extremism think tank.
Mattson told New Times he appreciates the phrase because of its relation to President John F. Kennedy, while adding that he “doesn’t subscribe” to QAnon.
However, there’s no evidence linking the phrase to Kennedy or a bell on the president’s boat, a belief some QAnon followers hold, according to CNN.
“The phrase has deep meaning to me on its surface as a play on words, regardless of its placement on the boat,” Mattson wrote in an email to The Tribune asking about the phrase’s association with the boat.
The QAnon theory claims a high-ranking government official known as “Q” has been leaking information on online message boards like 4chan and 8chan, which allow users to post anonymously, according to CBS News.
QAnon followers think the messages provide information about President Donald Trump’s secret battle against a group of Satanic pedophiles trafficking children, among other things.
Followers tweeting or posting about QAnon topics frequently use the WWG1WGA acronym, which The Atlantic called “an expression of solidarity among Q followers.”
In August 2019, the FBI labeled QAnon a domestic terror threat, citing multiple incidents in which followers committed criminal acts — and sometimes resorted to violence — in the name of the conspiracy theory.
Atascadero News columnist concerns
Atascadero News columnist Lee Perkins told The Tribune she resigned as a columnist for the newspaper in July because she was disturbed by Mattson’s series and the lack of sources backing up his claims.
Perkins also noticed and was troubled by Mattson’s use of the QAnon phrase “because of what that organization represents, what that organization puts out,” she said.
“It seems violent,” Perkins said of QAnon.
Perkins said she and other columnists were always required to cite evidence for the opinions they expressed in their writing. She said it bothered her to see Mattson use “very limited sources” to back up the claims he made in “House on Fire.”
“I can’t write for a newspaper if you’re going to make those accusations about demonstrators (spreading COVID-19) without sources,” Perkins said.
This story was originally published September 6, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
