DISINFO: COVID-19 was released from a US lab
SUMMARY
The coronavirus disease is connected to a leak from an American biological laboratory. This is allegedly evidenced by the silence on the issue by the US and its satellites, which points to only one possible conclusion – there was some sort of leak from the laboratories that have been built all around the world. COVID-19 was first found in Wuhan, but the lab in Wuhan is American. Similar American laboratories operate in Georgia and Eastern Europe.
RESPONSE
The article rests on a disinformation narrative based on two conspiracy theories: that there are secret biological laboratories run by the US around the world and that COVID-19 was supposedly created by the West in these laboratories for nefarious purposes.
Pro-Kremlin media have been spreading conspiracy theories about supposed US secret laboratories for years, claiming they are part of a biological and chemical attack against Russia and other countries. Laboratories in Ukraine and Georgia, which are part of an international cooperation with the US for tackling biological threats, are frequently targeted by Kremlin-controlled media in this context. As evidenced in the database, no evidence exists to support Kremlin’s allegations, which have been repeatedly debunked by independent fact-checkers and experts who have visited the sites in question and found nothing suspicious. In fact, many of the labs in question are actively engaged in fighting dangerous diseases and viruses, including COVID-19.
The claim that the coronavirus disease is manmade has been repeatedly debunked by numerous fact-checkers and medical experts, meaning there is no possibility that the disease originates from a biological laboratory. The overwhelming consensus among experts is that the SARS-CoV-2 virus has natural origins.
Read similar disinformation cases claiming that: the medical technology to infect people with COVID-19 was developed 5 years ago, that coronavirus might be a biological weapon, that Ukrainian migrant workers brought COVID-19 to Spain and Italy from secret US labs, that coronavirus was created by Americans in a bio-laboratory in Kazakhstan, and that the US develops biological weapons in Ukrainian laboratories.