Misinformation issue: COVID-19 conspiracies soar after latest report on origins

COVID-19 conspiracies soar after latest report on origins WASHINGTON (AP) — COVID-19's origins remain hazy . Three years after the start of the pandemic, it's still unclear whether the coronavirus that causes the disease leaked from a lab or spread to humans from an animal. AP NEWS

... When it comes to COVID-19 misinformation, any new report on the virus’ origin quickly triggers a relapse and a return of misleading claims about the virus, vaccines and masks that have reverberated since the pandemic began.

It happened again this week after the Energy Department confirmed that a classified report determined, with low confidence, that the virus escaped from a lab. Within hours, online mentions of conspiracy theories involving COVID-19 began to rise, with many commenters saying the classified report was proof they were right all along.

Far from definitive, the Energy Department’s report is the latest of many attempts by scientists and officials to identify the origin of the virus, which has now killed nearly 7 million people after being first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019.

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