Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was identified as a pandemic in late 2019 in the Chinese province of Wuhan. Early in 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak an international health crisis attributable to its fast spread. The entire globe was fearful of the pandemic as cases and deaths rose. The situation has paralyzed most of the world’s largest economies (Pummerer 51). During its early days, coronavirus seemed to be a global pandemic, but many countries, including the United States, were skeptical. As a result, many people’s alternatives became limited to believing in the disease’s reality. The facts surrounding coronavirus led to the belief that it was a political plot by China to destabilize the United States.
Conspiracy theory alleged that COVID-19 was a bioweapon engineered by China to bring the US economy to a halt. Almost a third of Americans felt that China developed Covid-19 in a laboratory and then released it purposely or unintentionally. Prominent politicians in the United States, including President Trump, endorsed this theory. Over 23% of Americans believed the Wuhan Institute of Virology was connected to China’s covert bioweapons program (Pummerer 54). The theory that the virus escaped inadvertently was debunked. Further evidence suggests that the Zoonotic virus discovered in bats has a natural environmental genesis in China’s genetic sequence. There is no reason to believe that the virus spread with the help of government, business, or political entities without proof to the contrary. Virologists and epidemiologists affirm that viruses such as COVID-19 may spread at an alarming rate even in the absence of outside intervention. The agreement among scientists leads to the contagion theory of illness as a possible explanation for COVID-19’s spread, including the likelihood that infected persons with no signs are transmitting the virus.
Work Cited
Pummerer, Lotte, et al. “Conspiracy Theories and Their Societal Effects during the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Social Psychological and Personality Science, vol. 13, no.1, 2022, pp. 49-59.