The Coronavirus—said to be a natural evolution, but is it really? What if it was a laboratory creation?
The Conspiracy
COVID-19 was created in a government-controlled laboratory in Wuhan
"I know that if I don't tell the truth to the world I will be regretful and I will lose the capacity for my self to tell the truth in the future," Virologist Dr. Li-Meng Yan.
Origins of the Conspiracy
The conspiracy was proposed by Dr. Li Meng Yan, a Chinese ophthalmologist and virologist, whose 2020 press conferences and publications claimed that SARS-CoV-2 was made in a Chinese government lab. In 2005, as part of her research on pathogens, Dr. Yan set out the conditions for a microorganism to qualify as a bioweapon:
It is highly lethal and can cause significant scale casualty.
It is extremely infectious and communicates effectively, typically via vaporized droplets and respiratory channels.
It is relatively resistant to environmental changes, can survive when transported over long distances, and is able to withstand a targeted release.
The contaminated population is being utilized unwittingly, as the disease’s vessels encouraged the spread of the infection. Given the worldwide presence of COVID and the probability of its drawn-out persistence, it is fitting to say that this attack was on humanity as a whole and has put its fate in danger.
Although SARS-CoV-2 has a low lethality, Dr. Yan contends that the virus has the characteristics of a bioweapon.
Other proponents of this conspiracy argue that the contaminated population is being utilized unwittingly, as asymptomatic people can spread the infection. Given the worldwide presence of COVID-19 and the probability of its long-term persistence, they argue that COVID-19 is consistent with the features of a bioweapon..
Two hypotheses on the origins of COVID-19 as a bioweapon have been circulating in, respectively in China and the West since early 2020. One accuses the United States of creating and releasing the virus during a world military sports competition held in Wuhan, and the other links COVID-19’s appearance to a high- level biocontainment research center in Wuhan, which emerged as the first major focal point of the pandemic. Both theories make claims of biological warfare attempts.
“In this time of the Wuhan pneumonia epidemic, please do not forget the Seventh World Military Games in Wuhan three months ago. Of course, some international athletes came from Africa, where infectious diseases frequently break out. Some athletes came from the United States, which has long attempted to carry out biological warfare against China. When [the authorities] investigated the source of the virus responsible for the 2003 SARS epidemic, many clues pointed to the United States and its biological warfare conspiracy against China," WeChat post.
Art via Express
The Facts
Mainstream scientific research and some of the most prominent mass media outlets have condemned the theory that C-19 had been genetically engineered and was a bioweapon, produced either in the US or China. However, the widespread scientific consensus that the virus is not human-made does not rule out the possibility that the virus unintentionally escaped the laboratory. Some scientists continue to call for further investigation around this theory.
While the natural origin of SARS-CoV-2 has been widely accepted, important questions remained, such as:
No intermediate host has been found, although it is believed to exist and function as the virus's reservoir before it spilled over to humans.
The continued unknowns surrounding SARS-CoV-2 have helped keep conspiracy theories alive, even though the bioweapon claim has been widely rejected.
Art by Lightspring via Shutterstock