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After the initial outbreak of the 2019–20 novel coronavirus, conspiracy theories and misinformation spread online regarding the origin and scale of the Wuhan coronavirus. Various social media posts claimed the virus was a bio-weapon, a population control scheme, or the result of a spy operation. Facebook, Twitter and Google announced that they will crack down on possible misinformation. In a blogpost, Facebook stated they would remove content flagged by leading global health organizations and local authorities that violate its content policy on misinformation leading to "physical harm".

On 2 February, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared there was a "massive infodemic" accompanying the outbreak and response, 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 responding to misinformation through its website and social media pages.

Eating bats

Some media outlets, including Daily Mail and RT, spread misinformation by promoting a video showing a young Chinese woman biting into a bat, falsely suggesting it was shot in Wuhan and that the cause of the outbreak was due to locals eating bats. The widely circulated video features unrelated footage of Chinese travel vlogger Wang Mengyun eating bat soup in the island country Palau in 2016 as part of an online travel programme. Mengyun stated in a Weibo post that she was inundated with abuse, and death threats, and that she only wished to showcase local Palauan cuisine.

Human made

Chinese bioweapon

The BBC published an article about coronavirus misinformation, citing two 24 January articles from the 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 U.S. 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.

Chinese theft

Some conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers and fake news websites have alleged that the coronavirus was stolen from a Canadian virus research lab by Chinese scientists, citing a news article by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in July 2019. The CBC claimed their early report was distorted by misinformation, and that the conspiracy theory had "no factual basis". Supporters of the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory and the anti-vax community falsely claimed the outbreak was a population control scheme created by Pirbright Institute in England, and by former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates.

Wuhan Institute of Virology

Accidential leak

During January and February 2020, the Institute was subject to various conspiracy theories and fake news, and in particular, concerns that it was the source of the outbreak through accidental leakage, which it publically refuted. In February 2020, the 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 alledged her work on bat-based viruses as the source of the virus, leading Shi to post: "I swear with my life, 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".

Misinformation aside, concerns on accidental leakage by the WIV remain. In 2017, U.S. 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.

Doxing of employees

On 29 January, financial news website and blog ZeroHedge suggested, without evidence, that a scientist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology created the 2019-nCoV 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 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. Zerohedge has since refuted the claim stating the article was a question of whether the coronavirus was human made. They state the article did not explicitly label the virus as being human made, but instead asked if it were possible to be human made since (at the time the article was posted) the claim that bats were to blame had been dubunked. Zerohedge also states they did not dox the scientist. Zerohedge posted the contact information that was listed on the Wuhan Institute of Virology website.

Size of the outbreak

On 24 January, a video circulated online appearing to be of a nurse in Hubei province describing a far more dire situation in Wuhan than purported by Chinese officials. The video claims that more than 90,000 people have been infected with the virus in China alone. 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'.

Vaccine and treatment

Conspiracy theorists have also claimed the virus had been patented and that a vaccine was already available. Politifact and Factcheck.org noted that no vaccine currently exists for the Wuhan coronavirus. 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 reported 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 includes antibiotics and herbal remedies not being useful.

References

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• 2019–20 Wuhan coronavirus outbreak
• Communication of falsehoods
• Conspiracy theories in Asia
• Deception
• Fake news
• Psychological warfare techniques
• Science and technology-related conspiracy theories