Social media users in China have been obsessing over a conspiracy theory claiming without evidence that the COVID-19 coronavirus was produced by US-linked laboratories in Ukraine.
A topic thread on China’s Twitter-like Weibo platform discussing the article went viral early Wednesday. As of press time, it had been viewed 1.67 billion times and spawned292,000 comment threads.
The article, which was re-published by 45 other Chinese outlets, purported that Global Times had come “one step closer to the truth” regarding the coronavirus’ origins. It also claimed that the Russian army had “found a lot of evidence in Ukraine” of US-linked laboratories producing biological weapons.
“Among them, it was also found that the United States is using bats to study coronaviruses and has produced components for biological weapons,” the Global Times said.
The article also claimed there was “heavy evidence” of Russia having found documents bearing the “signatures of US government officials and the seals of relevant US government departments.”
“When the truth is revealed, America will fall! When the truth is completely revealed, let us wait and see!” the article said.
The Global Times did not provide visual or documented evidence in the article to back up its claims.
It is unclear where and when this new theory about COVID-19’s origins was seeded.
China has previously spread baseless conspiracy theories that the COVID-19 virus was created in Fort Detrick, a US Army base, and that the Pfizer vaccine was killing older people.
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