There's an ancient tradition of conspiracy theories running wild after an outbreak of disease, one of the most notorious examples being the way Christians blamed Jews for the Black Death.
This particular conspiracy theory seems to be based on an article in The Washington Times (and all you really need to know about that paper is that it's a rabid supporter of Trump and all things conservative) alleging that the coronavirus could be an accidentally released bioweapon, but providing zero evidence in support of this claim. In the usual way, this has been taken up by the usual collection of intellectually-challenged wingnuts, and so it now bounces around the internet echo-chambers where such idiots clot together.
All viruses naturally mutate, and no credible scientist has produced a shred of evidence that the strain of coronavirus involved in the current epidemic shows any signs of having been artificially manipulated. In fact, it would be crap bioweapon since it spreads very easily and the mortality rate is very low. A good bioweapon would kill a high percentage of those it infected and it wouldn't spread very easily, since this reduces the chance of people deemed to be friendly being infected.
All of which is not to say that China is blameless in all this. They should have clamped down on the sale of wild animals for meat a long time ago, and the initial response of local authorities was stupid and little short of wilfully evil. When doctors started to suspect that a new pathogen was active in Wuhan, they weren't listened to, but instead told to stop rumour-mongering because this wasn't in the public good and threatened with punishment if they didn't shut up.
China is covering up Coronavirus
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There's an ancient tradition of conspiracy theories running wild after an outbreak of disease, one of the most notorious examples being the way Christians blamed Jews for the Black Death.
This particular conspiracy theory seems to be based on an article in The Washington Times (and all you really need to know about that paper is that it's a rabid supporter of Trump and all things conservative) alleging that the coronavirus could be an accidentally released bioweapon, but providing zero evidence in support of this claim. In the usual way, this has been taken up by the usual collection of intellectually-challenged wingnuts, and so it now bounces around the internet echo-chambers where such idiots clot together.
All viruses naturally mutate, and no credible scientist has produced a shred of evidence that the strain of coronavirus involved in the current epidemic shows any signs of having been artificially manipulated. In fact, it would be crap bioweapon since it spreads very easily and the mortality rate is very low. A good bioweapon would kill a high percentage of those it infected and it wouldn't spread very easily, since this reduces the chance of people deemed to be friendly being infected.
All of which is not to say that China is blameless in all this. They should have clamped down on the sale of wild animals for meat a long time ago, and the initial response of local authorities was stupid and little short of wilfully evil. When doctors started to suspect that a new pathogen was active in Wuhan, they weren't listened to, but instead told to stop rumour-mongering because this wasn't in the public good and threatened with punishment if they didn't shut up.