Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the Internet has been teeming with provocative conspiracy theories that the novel coronavirus was (1) created in a Wuhan, China, lab and deployed as a bioweapon or (2) derived from bats, grown on tissue culture, intentionally or accidentally transmitted to a researcher, and released into the community.Politicians have touted these theories in an attempt to blame China for the pandemic, and a discredited US scientist recently released a book and now-banned video claiming that wealthy people deliberately spread COVID-19 to boost vaccination rates.
And late last week, an unsubstantiated NBC News report on cell phone location data suggested that the Wuhan lab temporarily shut down after a "hazardous event" in