Coronavirus alternative theories

After the reported outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), various claims emerged online regarding the origin, scale, reality, and various other aspects of the disease.

Various social media posts claimed the virus was a bio-weapon with a patented vaccine, a population control scheme, or the result of a spy operation.

Pushback against alternative theories

On 2 February, the World Health Organization (WHO) described a "massive infodemic", citing an over-abundance of reported information, accurate and false, about the virus that "makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it." The WHO stated that the high demand for timely and trustworthy information has incentivised the creation of a direct WHO 24/7 myth-busting hotline where its communication and social media teams have been monitoring and countering alternative theories through its website and social media pages. The WHO specifically debunked as false some claims that have circulated on social media, including the claim that a person can tell if they have the virus or not simply by holding their breath; the claim that drinking lots of water will protect against the virus; and the claim that that gargling salt water will prevent infection.

Facebook, Twitter and Google started working with WHO to address "misinformation". In a blogpost, Facebook stated they would remove content flagged by global health organizations and local authorities that violate its content policy on leading to "physical harm". Facebook is also giving free advertising to WHO.

At the end of February, Amazon removed over one million products claiming to be able to cure or protect against coronavirus, and removed tens of thousands of listings for overpriced health products.

Conspiracy theories

Chinese lab errors

In April 2020, persistent rumors linked the outbreak to improperly conducted research in naturally occurring bat viruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. During this research a lab worker was said to have become infected as patient zero in the pandemic.

Chinese biological weapon

Further information: Cyberwarfare in the United States and Propaganda in the United States

In January 2020, the BBC cited two 24 January articles from The Washington Times which claimed the virus was part of a Chinese biological weapons program, based at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). The Washington Post later published an article debunking the conspiracy theory, citing US experts who explained why the institute was not suitable for bioweapon research, that most countries had abandoned bioweapons as fruitless, and that there was no evidence that the virus was genetically engineered.

On 29 January, financial news website and blog ZeroHedge suggested that a scientist at the WIV created the COVID-19 strain responsible for the coronavirus outbreak. Zerohedge listed the full contact details of the scientist supposedly responsible, a practice known as doxing, by including the scientist's name, photo and phone number, suggesting to readers that they "pay [the Chinese scientist] a visit" if they wanted to know "what really caused the coronavirus pandemic". Twitter later permanently suspended the blog's account for violating its platform manipulation policy.

In January 2020, Buzzfeed News also reported on an internet meme/conspiracy theory of a link between the logo of the WIV and "Umbrella Corporation", the agency that made the virus that starts the zombie apocalypse in the Resident Evil franchise. The theory also saw a link between "Racoon" (the main city in Resident Evil), and an anagram of "Corona" (the name of the virus). The popularity of this theory attracted the attention of Snopes, who proved it as false showing that the logo was not from the Institute, but from Shanghai Ruilan Bao Hu San Biotech Limited, located approximately 500 miles (800 km) away in Shanghai and additionally pointed out that the proper name of the city in Resident Evil is Raccoon City.

In February 2020, US Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) as well as Francis Boyle, a law professor, suggested that the virus may have been a Chinese bioweapon, while in the opinion of numerous medical experts there is no evidence for this.

Conservative political commentator Rush Limbaugh said on The Rush Limbaugh Show, the most popular radio show in the US, that the virus was probably "a ChiCom laboratory experiment" and that the Chinese were using the virus and the media hysteria surrounding it, to bring down Donald Trump. In February 2020, The Financial Times reported from virus expert and global co-lead coronavirus investigator, Trevor Bedford, who said that "There is no evidence whatsoever of genetic engineering that we can find", and that, "The evidence we have is that the mutations [in the virus] are completely consistent with natural evolution". Bedford further explained, "The most likely scenario, based on genetic analysis, was that the virus was transmitted by a bat to another mammal between 20–70 years ago. This intermediary animal—not yet identified—passed it on to its first human host in the city of Wuhan in late November or early December 2019".

The Inverse reported that "Christopher Bouzy, the founder of Bot Sentinel, did a Twitter analysis for Inverse and found [online] bots and trollbots are making an array of false claims. These bots are claiming China intentionally created the virus, that it's a biological weapon, that Democrats are overstating the threat to hurt Donald Trump and more. While we can't confirm the origin of these bots, they are decidedly pro-Trump."

Concerns on accidental leakage by the WIV remain. In 2017, US molecular biologist Richard H. Ebright, expressed caution when the WIV was expanded to become mainland China's first biosafety level 4 (BSL–4) laboratory, noting previous escapes of the SARS virus at other Chinese laboratories. While Ebright refuted several conspiracy theories regarding the WIV (e.g. bioweapons research, that the virus was engineered), he told BBC China that this did not represent the possibility of the virus being "completely ruled out" from entering the population due to a laboratory accident. On 6 February, the White House asked scientists and medical researchers to rapidly investigate the origins of the virus in order to address both the current spread and "to inform future outbreak preparation and better understand animal/human and environmental transmission aspects of coronaviruses."

Tobias Ellwood MP, chairperson of the Defence Select Committee of the UK House of Commons, also publicly questioned the role of the Chinese Army's Wuhan Institute for Biological Products and called for the "greater transparency over the origins of the coronavirus".

South China Morning Post reported that one of the Institute's lead researchers, Shi Zhengli, was the particular focus of personal attacks in Chinese social media who alleged her work on bat-based viruses as the source of the virus, leading Shi to post: "I swear with my life, [the virus] has nothing to do with the lab", and when asked by the SCMP to comment on the attacks, Shi responded: "My time must be spent on more important matters". Caixin reported Shi made further public statements against "perceived tinfoil-hat theories about the new virus's source", quoting her as saying: "The novel 2019 coronavirus is nature punishing the human race for keeping uncivilized living habits. I, Shi Zhengli, swear on my life that it has nothing to do with our laboratory".

Commentator Josh Bernstein claimed that the Democratic Party and the "medical deep state" were collaborating with the Chinese government to create and release the coronavirus in order to bring down Donald Trump. Bernstein went on to suggest that those responsible should be locked in a room with infected coronavirus patients as punishment.

Fox News hosted Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, who promoted a conspiracy theory that North Korea and China conspired together to create the coronavirus. He also said that people were overreacting to the coronavirus outbreak and that Democrats were trying to use the situation to harm President Trump.

US biological weapon

Russian accusation

Further information: Cyberwarfare by Russia

On 22 February, US officials alleged that Russia is behind an ongoing disinformation campaign, using thousands of social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to deliberately promote unfounded conspiracy theories, claiming that the virus is a biological weapon manufactured by the CIA and the US is waging economic war on China using the virus. The acting assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, Philip Reeker, said that "Russia's intent is to sow discord and undermine US institutions and alliances from within" and "by spreading disinformation about coronavirus, Russian malign actors are once again choosing to threaten public safety by distracting from the global health response." Russia denies the allegation, saying "this is a deliberately false story".

According to US-based The National Interest magazine, although official Russian channels had been muted on pushing the US biowarfare conspiracy theory, other Russian media elements don't share the Kremlin's restraint. Zvezda, a news outlet funded by the Russian Defense Ministry, published an article titled "Coronavirus: American biological warfare against Russia and China", claiming that the virus is intended to damage the Chinese economy, weakening its hand in the next round of trade negotiations. Ultra-nationalist politician and leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, claimed on a Moscow radio station that the virus was an experiment by the Pentagon and pharmaceutical companies. Politician Igor Nikulin made rounds on Russian television and news media, arguing that Wuhan was chosen for the attack because the presence of a BSL-4 virus lab provided a cover story for the Pentagon and CIA about a Chinese bio-experiment leak.

Iranian accusation

Further information: Propaganda in Iran

According to Radio Farda, Iranian cleric Seyyed Mohammad Saeedi accused US President Donald Trump of targeting Qom with coronavirus "to damage its culture and honor". Saeedi claimed that Trump is fulfilling his promise to hit Iranian cultural sites, if Iranians took revenge for the US airstrike that killed of Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani.

Iranian TV personality Ali Akbar Raefipour claimed that the coronavirus was part of a "hybrid warfare" programme waged by the United States on Iran and China.

Brigadier General Gholam Reza Jalali, head of Iranian Civil Defense Organization, claimed that the coronavirus is likely a biological attack on China and Iran with economic goals.

Hossein Salami, the head of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), claimed that the coronavirus outbreak in Iran may be due to a US "biological attack". Several Iranian politicians, including Ali Khamenei, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Rasoul Falahati, Alireza Panahian, Abolfazl Hasanbeigi and Gholamali Jafarzadeh Imanabadi, also made similar remarks. However, Iran's deputy health minister Reza Malekzadeh rejected the biological warfare theory.

Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a letter to the United Nations on 9 March, claiming that "it is clear to the world that the mutated coronavirus was produced in lab" and that COVID-19 is "a new weapon for establishing and/or maintaining political and economic upper hand in the global arena."

Chinese accusation

According to London-based The Economist, China's internet is full of conspiracy theories about COVID-19 being the CIA's creation to keep China down. Although biological warfare against Chinese troops in the Korean war is only considered an allegation in the US, it is considered official history in China, thus greatly helping these new theories gain credibility.

Multiple conspiracy articles in Chinese from the SARS era resurfaced during the outbreak with altered details, claiming that SARS is biological warfare conducted by the US against China. Some of these articles claim that BGI Group from China sold genetic information of the Chinese people to the US, with the US then being able to deploy the virus specifically targeting the genome of Chinese individuals.

On 26 January, Chinese military news site Xilu published an article detailing how the virus was artificially combined by the US to "precisely target Chinese people". The article was removed after early February.

Some articles on popular sites in Chinese have also cast suspicion on US military athletes participating in the Wuhan 2019 Military World Games, which lasted until the end of October 2019, and have suggested that they deployed the virus. They claim the inattentive attitude and disproportionately below-average results of American athletes in the games indicate they might have been there for other purposes and they might actually be bio-warfare operatives. Such posts stated that their place of residence during their stay in Wuhan was also close to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, where the first known cluster of cases occurred.

In March 2020, this conspiracy theory was endorsed by Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China. On 13 March, the US government summoned Chinese Ambassador Cui Tiankai to Washington DC over the coronavirus conspiracy theory.

Arab world

According to Washington DC-based nonprofit Middle East Media Research Institute, numerous writers in the Arabic press have promoted the conspiracy theory that COVID-19, as well as SARS and the swine flu virus, were deliberately created and spread by the US in order to sell vaccines against these diseases, and it is "part of an economic and psychological war waged by the US against China with the aim of weakening it and presenting it as a backward country and a source of diseases". Iraqi political analyst Sabah Al-Akili on Al-Etejah TV, Saudi daily Al-Watan writer Sa'ud Al-Shehry, Syrian daily Al-Thawra columnist Hussein Saqer, and Egyptian journalist Ahmad Rif'at on Egyptian news website Vetogate, were some examples given by MEMRI as propagators of the US biowarfare conspiracy theory in the Arabic world.

Philippines

A Filipino Senator, Tito Sotto, played a bioweapon conspiracy video in a February 2020 Senate hearing, suggesting that the coronavirus is biowarfare waged against China.

Venezuela

Constituent Assembly member Elvis Méndez declared that the coronavirus is a "bacteriological sickness created in '89, in '90 and historically" and that it was a sickness "inoculated by the gringos". Méndez theorized that the virus was a weapon against Latin America and China and that its purpose was "to demoralize the person, to weaken in order to install their system".

Russian biological weapon

"Whenever everyone is blaming everyone else, place a bet that Putin did it!"

Antisemitic conspiracies

Iran's Press TV asserted that "Zionist elements developed a deadlier strain of coronavirus against Iran". Similarly, various Arab media outlets accused Israel and the United States of creating and spreading COVID-19, avian flu, and SARS. Users on social media offered a variety of theories, including the supposition that Jews had manufactured COVID-19 to precipitate a global stock market collapse and thereby profit via insider trading, while a guest on Turkish television posited a more ambitious scenario in which Jews and Zionists had created COVID-19, avian flu, and Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever in order to "design the world, seize countries, [and] neuter the world's population".

Spy operation

Some people have alleged that the coronavirus was stolen from a Canadian virus research lab by Chinese scientists. Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada said that allegation had "no factual basis". The stories seem to have been derived from a July 2019 news article stating that some Chinese researchers had their security access to a Canadian Level 4 virology facility revoked during a federal police investigation; Canadian officials described this as an administrative matter and said that "there is absolutely no risk to the Canadian public". This article was published by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC); responding to the allegations, the CBC later stated that "CBC reporting never claimed the two scientists were spies, or that they brought any version of the coronavirus to the lab in Wuhan". While pathogen samples were transferred from the lab in Winnipeg, Canada to Beijing, China, on 31 March 2019, neither of the samples was a coronavirus, the Public Health Agency of Canada says that the shipment conformed to all federal policies, and there has not been any statement that the researchers under investigation were responsible for sending the shipment. The current location of the researchers under investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is not being released. In the midst of the coronavirus epidemic, a senior research associate and expert in biological warfare with the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, referring to a NATO press conference, identified suspicions of espionage as the reason behind the expulsions from the lab, but made no suggestion that coronavirus was taken from the Canadian lab or that it is the result of bioweapons defense research in China.

Population control scheme

According to the BBC, Jordan Sather, a YouTube broadcaster supporting QAnon and the anti-vax movement, has claimed the outbreak was a population control scheme created by Pirbright Institute in England and by former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, which the BCC calls a hoax.

Size of the pandemic

Nurse whistleblower

On 24 January, a video circulated online appearing to be of a nurse named Jin Hui in Hubei describing a far more dire situation in Wuhan than purported by Chinese officials. The video claimed that more than 90,000 people had been infected with the virus in China, the virus can spread from one person to 14 people and the virus is starting the second mutation. The video attracted millions of views on various social media platforms and was mentioned in numerous online reports. However, the BBC noted that contrary to its English subtitles in one of the video's existing versions, the woman does not claim to be either a nurse or a doctor in the video and that her suit and mask do not match the ones worn by medical staff in Hubei. The video's claim of 90,000 infected cases is noted to be 'unsubstantiated'.

Alleged leak of death toll

On 25 February, Taiwan News published an article, claiming Tencent accidentally leaked the real numbers of death and infection in China. Taiwan News suggests the Tencent Epidemic Situation Tracker had briefly showed infected cases and death tolls many times higher of the official figure, citing a Facebook post by 38-year-old Taiwanese beverage store owner Hiroki Lo and an anonymous Taiwanese netizen. The article was referenced by other news outlets such as Daily Mail and widely circulated on Twitter, Facebook, 4chan, sparked a wide range of conspiracy theories that the screenshot indicates the real death toll instead of the ones published by health officials. Justin Lessler, associate professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, claims the numbers of the alleged "leak" are unreasonable and unrealistic, citing the case fatality rate as far lower than the 'leaked information'. A spokesman of Tencent responded to the news article, claiming the image was doctored, and it features "false information which we never published".

Keoni Everington, author of the original news article, defended and asserted the authenticity of the leak. Brian Hioe and Lars Wooster of New Bloom Magazine debunked the theory from data on other websites, which were using Tencent's database to generate custom visualizations while showing none of the inflated figures appearing in the images promulgated by Taiwan News. Thus, they concluded the screenshot was digitally fabricated.

Taiwan theories

Further information: Cross-Strait relations

On 26 February 2020, Taiwanese Central News Agency reported on Facebook claims that the pandemic in Taiwan was out of control, the Taiwanese Government had covered up the total number of cases, and that President Tsai Ing-wen had been infected. The Taiwan fact-checking organization had suggested the Facebook posts shared similarities with mainland China due to its use of simplified Chinese and mainland China vocabulary.

In March 2020, Taiwan's Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau warned that mainland China was trying to undermine trust in factual news by portraying the Taiwanese Government reports as fake news. Taiwanese authorities are investigating whether these messages were linked to instructions given by the Communist Party of China. The PRC's Taiwan Affairs Office refuted the claims calling them lies and said that Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party was "inciting hatred" between the two sides.

World Population Project Map

In early February, a decade-old map illustrating a hypothetical viral outbreak published by the World Population Project (part of the University of Southampton) was misappropriated by a number of Australian media news outlets (and British tabloids The Sun, Daily Mail and Metro) which claimed the map represented the 2020 coronavirus outbreak. This was then spread via the social media accounts of the same media outlets, and while some outlets later removed the map, the BBC reported that a number of news sites had yet to retract the map.

Alternative medical claims

Vaccine preexistence

It was reported that multiple social media posts have promoted a theory that the virus was known and that a vaccine was already available. PolitiFact and FactCheck.org noted that no vaccine currently exists for COVID-19. The patents cited by various social media posts reference existing patents for genetic sequences and vaccines for other strains of coronavirus such as the SARS coronavirus. The WHO claimed, as of 5 February 2020, that amid news reports of "breakthrough" drugs being discovered to treat people infected with the virus, there were no known effective treatments; this included antibiotics and herbal remedies not being useful. Scientists are working to develop a vaccine, but as of March 18, 2020, no vaccine candidates have completed clinical trials.

Non-existence of viruses

A number of online sources cite researchers who state that viruses have never been found and do not exist, or that they are exosomes.

Non-transmissibility of coronavirus

A number of sources, possibly including the World Health Organization (WHO), have stated that the coronavirus is not contagious.

Cocaine cure

Several viral tweets purporting that snorting cocaine would sterilize one's nostrils of the coronavirus spread around Europe and Africa. In response, the French Ministry of Health released a PSA debunking this claim, as did the World Health Organisation.

African resistance

Beginning on 11 February, reports, quickly spread via Facebook, implied that a Cameroonian student in China had been completely cured of the virus due to his African genetics. While a student was successfully treated, other media sources have noted that no evidence implies Africans are more resistant to the virus and labeled such claims as false information. Kenyan Secretary of Health Mutahi Kagwe explicitly refuted rumors that "those with black skin cannot get coronavirus", while announcing Kenya's first case on 13 March.

Country-based alt-theories

Brazil

In Brazil, a video was widely shared claiming that vinegar was more effective than hand sanitiser against the coronavirus. That was disproved, as "there is no evidence that acetic acid is effective against the virus" and, even if there was, "its concentration in common household vinegar is low".

Chloroform and ether based drug loló was said to cure the disease in messages spread in Brazil. Other so called cures in messages spreading in Brazil were avocado and mint tea, hot whiskey and honey, essential oils, vitamins C and D, fennel tea (supposedly similar to the medicine Tamiflu, according to a false e-mail attributed to a hospital director) and cocaine.

China

Various national and party-held Chinese media heavily advertised an "overnight research" report by Wuhan Institute of Virology and Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, on how shuanghuanglian, an herb mixture from traditional Chinese medicine, can effectively inhibit the novel coronavirus. The report has led to a buying craze of shuanghuanglian.

Estonian

On 27 February 2020, the Estonian Minister of the Interior Mart Helme stated at a government press conference that the common cold had been renamed as the coronavirus and that in his youth nothing like that existed. He recommended wearing warm socks and mustard patches as well as spreading goose fat on one's chest as treatments for the virus. Helme also said that the virus would pass within a few days to a week just like the common cold.

Greece

Despite the coronovirus outbreak, the Church of Greece announced that the Holy Communion, in which churchgoers eat pieces of bread soaked in wine from the same chalice, will continue as a practice. The Holy Synod stated that the Holy Communion "cannot be the cause of the spread of illness", with Metropolitan Seraphim saying that the wine was without blemish because it represented the blood and body of Christ, and that "whoever attends Holy Communion is approaching God, who has the power to heal".

New Democracy MP Elena Rapti also said that she was going and that if there was deep faith, the Communion was healing. The Church furthermore refused to restrict Christians from taking the Holy Communion. In public statements, several clerics urged worshippers to continue taking part in the Holy Communion, justifying it by saying that Jesus never got sick, while the Bishop of Piraeus Seraphim announced that only those who took part in masses without true faith could be affected. There were furthermore reports that the CoVid 19 hotline was informing concerned believers that there was no risk of contagion at the sacrament.

Some high-profile Greek medical doctors publicly supported the continuation of practicing Holy Communion, causing a sharp reaction by the Greek Association of Hospital Doctors. Eleni Giamarellou, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Athens, announced that there was no danger, and that she was accepting communion with faith in God, so she could not become infected. The Greek Association of Hospital Doctors criticized these professionals for putting their religious beliefs before science.

It was also reported that a right-wing populist party leader of the party Greek Solution sells a hand cream via his TV shop, which supposedly would completely kill COVID-19, although the alleged miracle drug is not approved by medical authorities.

India

Political activist Swami Chakrapani and Member of the Legislative Assembly Suman Haripriya claimed that drinking cow urine and applying cow dung on the body can cure coronavirus. WHO's chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan rubbished such claims and criticized these politicians for spreading misinformation. In a bizarre statement, parliamentarian Ramesh Bidhuri of Bharatiya Janata Party claimed that as per experts using Namaste as a greeting prevents contamination from the Covid-19, but using Arabic greetings like Adab or As-salamu alaykum does not as it directs the air into the mouth.

Nigeria

Following the first reported case of COVID-19 in Nigeria on 28 February, untested cures and treatments began to spread via platforms like WhatsApp.

South Korea

South Korean "conservative populist" Jun Kwang-hun told his followers that there was no risk to mass public gatherings as the virus was impossible to contract outdoors. Many of his followers are elderly.

United States

Claims that hand sanitiser is merely "antibacterial not antiviral", and therefore not effective against the coronavirus, have spread widely on Twitter and other social networks. While the effectiveness of sanitiser depends on the specific ingredients, most hand sanitiser sold commercially does kill the coronavirus.

Some QAnon proponents, including Jordan Sather, and others, have promoted gargling "Miracle Mineral Supplement" (actually an industrial bleach) as a way of preventing or curing the disease.

In February 2020, televangelist Jim Bakker promoted a colloidal silver solution sold on his website, as a remedy for coronavirus COVID-19; naturopath Sherrill Sellman, a guest on his show, falsely stated that it "hasn't been tested on this strain of the coronavirus, but it's been tested on other strains of the coronavirus and has been able to eliminate it within 12 hours." The US Food and Drug Administration and New York Attorney General's office both issued a cease-and-desist orders against Bakker, and he was sued by the state of Missouri over the sales. The New York Attorney General's office also issued a cease-and-desist order to radio host Alex Jones, who was selling silver-infused toothpaste that he falsely claimed can kill the virus and had been verified by federal officials, causing a Jones spokesman to deny the products had been sold for the purpose of treating any disease.

A televangelist, Kenneth Copeland, claimed on Victory channel during a programme called "Standing Against Coronavirus", that he can cure television viewers of COVID-19 directly from the TV studio. The viewers have to touch the television to receive the spiritual healing.

In March 2020, the Miami New Times reported that managers at Norwegian Cruise Line had prepared a set of responses intended to convince wary customers to book cruises, including "blatantly false" claims that the coronavirus "can only survive in cold temperatures, so the Caribbean is a fantastic choice for your next cruise", that "[s]cientists and medical professionals have confirmed that the warm weather of the spring will be the end of the [c]oronavirus", and that the virus "cannot live in the amazingly warm and tropical temperatures that your cruise will be sailing to." Scientists caution that this is possible, but not guaranteed.

Venezuela

On 27 February 2020, María Alejandra Díaz, a member of the Venezuelan Constituent Assembly, promoted a recipe that she claimed would cure COVID-19. The recipe consisted of ingredients often purported to prevent and cure colds, including lemon grass, elder, ginger, black pepper, lemon and honey. Díaz also described the virus as a bioterrorism weapon.

Governmental info manipulation

China

Relating to government's mishandling of crisis

Whistleblowing from various Chinese doctors, including Li Wenliang on 30 December 2019 revealed that Wuhan hospital authorities were already aware that the virus was a SARS-like coronavirus and patients were already placed under quarantine. The Wuhan Health Commission still insisted that the illness spreading in Wuhan at the time was not SARS on 5 January 2020.

In the early stages of the outbreak, the Chinese National Health Commission said that they had no "clear evidence" of human-to-human transmissions. Later research published on 20 January 2020 indicated that among officially confirmed cases, human-to-human transmission may have started in December of the previous year, and the delay of disclosure on the results until then, rather than earlier in January, was met with criticism towards health authorities. Wang Guangfa, one of the health officials, said that "There was uncertainty regarding the human-to-human transmission", but he was infected by a patient within 10 days of making the statement.

According to the Daily Beast, on 27 January, the editor of state-owned People's Daily tweeted an image of an apartment building and wrongly claimed that it was a hospital under construction in Wuhan, and that it had been completed "in 16 hours". The image was later retweeted by a deputy minister in China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

On 15 February 2020, China's paramount leader and Party general secretary Xi Jinping published an article which claimed he had been aware of the epidemic since 7 January 2020 and issued an order to contain the spread of the disease during a meeting on that day. However, a record of that same meeting released beforehand shows that there was zero mention of the epidemic throughout.

Relating to origin of virus

Chinese government officials launched a coordinated disinformation campaign seeking to spread doubt about the origin of the coronavirus and its outbreak. A review of Chinese state media and social media posts in early March 2020, conducted by the Washington Post, found that anti-American conspiracy theories circulating among Chinese users "gained steam through a mix of unexplained official statements magnified by social media, censorship and doubts stoked by state media and government officials." U.S. Department of State officials, as well as University of Chicago political science professor Dali Yang, an authority on Chinese politics, have stated that the Chinese campaign appears intended to deflect attention away from the Chinese government's mishandling of the crisis.

At a press conference on March 12, 2020, two spokesmen for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Zhao Lijian and Geng Shuang) promoted the conspiracy theory that the coronovirus had been "bio-engineered" by Western powers; and suggested that the U.S. government, specifically the U.S. Army, had spread the virus. No evidence supports these claims. Zhao also pushed these conspiracy theories on Twitter, which is blocked in mainland China but is used as a public diplomacy tool by Chinese officials, who use the platform to promote the Chinese government and defend it against criticism. China's ambassador to South Africa also amplified these claims on Twitter. Other Chinese online posts have criticized the Japanese and Italian governments.

The Chinese disinformation campaign was condemned by the U.S. Department of State, who criticized Chinese authorities for spreading "dangerous and ridiculous" conspiracy claims. The U.S. summoned China's ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai, to issue a "stern representation" over the Chinese government's claims.

United States

On 25 February, President Trump said, "I think that whole situation will start working out. We’re very close to a vaccine." SARS-CoV-2 has been "community-spreading" in the United States undetected for weeks, and new vaccine development may require over a year to gain regulatory approval. In an interview with Sean Hannity on 4 March, Trump also claimed that the death rate published by the WHO is false (that the correct fatality rate was less than 1 percent, and said, "Well, I think the 3.4 percent is really a false number."), that the potential impact of the outbreak is exaggerated by Democrats plotting against him, and that it is safe for infected individuals to go to work.

The White House has accused the media of intentionally stoking fears of the virus to destabilize the administration. The Stat News reported that "President Trump and members of his administration have also said that US containment of the virus is 'close to airtight' and that the virus is only as deadly as the seasonal flu." Around the same time that the "airtight" claim was made, the SARS-CoV-2 was already past containment because the first case of community spread of the virus was confirmed, and it was spreading faster than severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus with a case fatality rate at least seven times the fatality rate for seasonal flu.

Criminal and scam claims

The UN WHO has warned of criminal scams where perpetrators misrepresent themselves as representatives of the WHO seeking personal information from victims via email or phone.

Cybersecurity Check Point says there has been a large increase in phishing attacks to lure victims into unwittingly installing a computer virus under the guise of coronavirus-themed emails containing attachments. They use fake domains such as "cdc-gov.org" instead of the correct "cdc.gov", or even spoof the original domain so it looks real. Over 4,000 coronavirus related domains have been registered.

Police in New Jersey, USA reported incidents of criminals knocking on people's doors and claiming to be from the CDC. They attempt to sell products at inflated prices or otherwise scam victims under the guise of educating and protecting the public from the coronavirus.

Links that purport to go to the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus map but instead go to a fake site that spreads malware have been circulating on the Internet.

Diet

Bat eating

Some media outlets, including Daily Mail and RT, circulated a video that showed a young Chinese woman eating a bat and suggesting that it was shot in Wuhan. The widely circulated video contains unrelated footage of a Chinese travel vlogger, Wang Mengyun, eating bat soup (specifically a stewed Pelew flying fox) in the island country of Palau in 2016. Wang posted an apology on Weibo, in which she said that she had received threats, and that she had only wanted to showcase Palauan cuisine. Scientists suggest that the virus originated in bats and hopped into an intermediary host animal before infecting people.

Vegetarian immunity

Some organizations, including PETA, and individuals made false claims on social media that eating meat made people susceptible to the virus.

In India, a false rumour spread online alleging that only people who eat meat were affected by coronavirus, causing "#NoMeat_NoCoronaVirus" to trend on Twitter.

Corona beer mis-association

A poll was released showing that 38% of American beer-drinkers have refused to drink Corona beer. This statistic is not considered a reliable indication of an American belief that drinking the beer causes the virus, even though assumptions have been made along this line in the media and among the public. There is no link between the virus and the beer.

See also

• List of conspiracy theories
• SARS conspiracy theory
• Allegations of biological warfare in the Korean War – similar episodes of psychological warfare followed allegations of biological warfare during the Korean War.

External links

• World Health Organization: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) advice for the public: Myth busters