White supremacist groups in the United States are encouraging supporters who contract coronavirus to spread the virus on to Jews and police officers, an FBI intelligence report has claimed.

An alert from the FBI’s New York office that was circulated last Thursday warned that “members of extremist groups are encouraging one another to spread the virus, if contracted, through bodily fluids and personal interactions.”

Neo-Nazi sympathisers were directed to spread the disease to members of the Jewish community by going to “any place they may be congregated, to include markets, political offices, businesses and places of worship.”

ABC News, which obtained the FBI’s report, said local police agencies were warned that extremists want their followers to try to use spray bottles to spread bodily fluids upon officers on the street.

Other white supremacists used the internet to blame Jews and Jewish leaders for both the coronavirus and the global response, including the shutdown of all but essential government functions in places like New York, New Jersey and California.

Michael Masters, head of Secure Communities Network, an umbrella group that coordinates security for Jewish organisations and synagogues around the country, said: “From pushing the idea that Jews created the coronavirus virus to sell vaccines to encouraging infected followers to try to spread the illness to the Jewish community and law enforcement, as the coronavirus has spread, we have observed how white supremacists, neo-Nazis and others have used this to drive their own conspiracy theories, spread disinformation and incite violence on their online platforms.”