It's good she asked, and spraying municipalities from planes is pretty common[0].
China was doing similar with sanitizer trucks running up and down streets so it's not terribly unfounded--actually that fake news is likely better than >99% of the actual crap on there.
The point is, this was not based in fact. There was no such plan ever, especially with helicopters. Someone generated the bullshit, and we have to spend energy disputing it.
> There was no such plan ever, especially with helicopters.
The NY health department does use helicopters to drop larvicide on likely mosquito spawning grounds[1]. Your mom did believe a false story and also there absolutely was (and is) a plan to use helicopters to distribute an an anti-disease treatments over NYC.
I think the tricky part of the misinformation we are all dealing with is that many elements of it (method of distribution, the idea of spraying down a city) are things that are happening in some way - the false narrative is the particular combination people believe in. I think it's part of why flat denials are often ineffective.
She didn't "believe" anything - she read it on Facebook. Someone else believes it, without evidence, types it in, and then millions of people either believe it or are not sure of what is true anymore. You are posting links to official government websites - do you think the people who get their information from Facebook verify it via official government sources? Do you think that most of them go "oh, that sounds weird, let me check the official NYC page"? I do it, you do it, but most people do not.
I did specifically call it fake news; but it's a harmless example compared to the other stuff people get wrapped up into believing, in large part thanks to algorithms.
China was doing similar with sanitizer trucks running up and down streets so it's not terribly unfounded--actually that fake news is likely better than >99% of the actual crap on there.
[0] https://www.clarke.com/blog/aerial-mosquito-control-applicat...
Edit: footage of the trucks because they're neat https://futurism.com/neoscope/watch-china-spray-entire-city-...
No idea what the efficacy is.