DISINFO: Coronavirus is man-made
SUMMARY
For China, it has been exposed to the Coronavirus virus in the Chinese city of Wuhan since the fall of 2019, specifically after the Military Olympics in that city. Chinese leaders consider that the epidemic was introduced to China by the American military delegation participating in these games. This entry might be a coincidence after the virus was engineered in a US military laboratory without taking the necessary precautions if the Chinese leadership wanted not to assume bad faith on the part of the Americans. What strengthens the Chinese allegation is the recognition by Robert Radfield, the director of the Center for Disease Control (CDC), that a number of infections were discovered in the United States before they spread to China. But there is another account that says that the virus was French-made (made in 2003) and was transferred to a Sino-French joint laboratory that opened in 2017 in the city of Wuhan. Bats were experimented with, but one of the bats escaped from the laboratory and the epidemic occurred. However, regardless of the accounts and their accuracy, it has become clear that the greatest possibility is that the virus is man-made and not natural, and therefore open questions about bacterial experiments in laboratories and their feasibility and the possibility of turning them into a weapon of mass destruction.
RESPONSE
A recurring conspiracy theory that echo pro-Kremlin disinformation about coronavirus being man-made. The current coronavirus (2019-nCoV) comes from a family of viruses that include other viruses such as SARS and MERS. The identity of the animal source of the coronavirus, named nCoV-2019, has been one of the key questions for researchers. Coronaviruses are known to circulate in mammals and birds, and scientists have already suggested that nCoV-2019 originally came from bats. One of the previous coronaviruses that caused severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, spread from bats to civet cats to humans. A group of 27 prominent public health scientists have condemned rumours and conspiracy theories about the origin of the coronavirus outbreak: "We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin." The authors of The Lancet statement note that scientists from several countries who have studied SARS-CoV-2 "overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife", just like many other viruses that have recently emerged in humans. "Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumours and prejudice that jeopardise our global collaboration in the fight against this virus," the statement says.