After three years of a pandemic and millions of deaths from corona virusthe origin of the virus remains a mystery.

As is often the case with riddles, one incident is enough to give rise to a number of theories as to their explanation.

In this particular case, the reason new conspiracy theories This is according to an article published on Sunday in the Wall Street Journal, according to which the US Department of Energy estimated with low confidence that the pandemic was caused by an accidental leak from a laboratory in Wuhan.

Evaluation conflict

The report has not been released to the public, and Washington officials emphasize that there is disagreement among US agencies over origins.

“The FBI has been evaluating for some time that the pandemic is most likely related to the Wuhan lab incident,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said yesterday, Tuesday, in an interview he gave to Fox News.

But other US intelligence agencies do not agree with this.

Many scientists believe that the more likely explanation is that the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 was transmitted from animals to humans, likely at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, a scenario supported by a number of studies and studies.

The World Health Organization said that while animal origin remains the most likely scenario, the possibility of a leak from a Chinese lab needs to be further explored before it can be ruled out.

According to virologist Angela Rasmussen, people should be open-minded about the data used in the DOE’s assessment. However, according to him, at the moment and without the ability to evaluate this evidence contained in the secret report, there is no reason to question the hypothesis of a natural origin of the virus.

“We can and we know what the scientific evidence shows. Available data continues to indicate the presence of zoonotic agents in the Huanan market,” he notes.

Discarding conspiracy theories

However, many of those who refer to the new report as an argument for their justification ignore its scientific evidence and generalize, attributing incorrect assessments and decisions to experts.

“School closures were an unfortunate and disastrous policy. The masks were ineffective and harmful. Covid came from the lab. Everything we skeptics have said is coming true,” one woman wrote in a tweet that has been viewed more than 300,000 times.

Since the WSJ revelations were published on Sunday, conspiracy theories have been rampant, according to an analysis by Zignal Labs, a San Francisco-based media assessment organization.

Closing schools was an unfortunate and disastrous policy.

Masks are ineffective. And harmful (they’ll get to that later).

Covid came from the lab.

Everything we skeptics said was true.

And we were vilified, ostracized, fired.

No, we’re not letting go. #never ever pic.twitter.com/Rgckh8VG7C

— Jennifer Sey (@JenniferSey) February 26, 2023

While the lab leak theory has been circulating online since the start of the pandemic, reports of it skyrocketed 100,000% in the last 48 hoursfollowing the disclosure of the Department of Energy report, according to analysis by Zignal, which collects and aggregates data from social media, blogs and websites.

Many conspiracy theorists agree with each other, others contradict each other. In a tweet yesterday, far-right MP Marjorie Taylor Green called Covid-19 a “man-made bioweapon in China” and one of her followers responded “Made in Ukraine.”

After destroying all lives and handling covid so badly, this man made a bioweapon from China, no thanks.

The American people who pay taxes and fund the State Department will not be controlled by the WHO or any other international governing body. https://t.co/j5xPcE9Mpt

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) February 28, 2023

“With so many questions left unanswered about a global event that claimed so many lives and upended even more, it’s no surprise that Covid-19 continues to generate so much anger and misinformation,” said Brett Shaffer, Alliance for Securing. Democracy (ASD), an organization that records government propaganda.

“The pandemic has severely disrupted everyone’s lives. The intensity of emotions about Covid. I don’t know if it will ever disappear. Yet whenever something new comes along, it gives new life to resentments and disappointments, real or imagined,” he says.

Source: Associated Press.