Report Resurrects Baseless Claim that Coronavirus Was Bioengineered
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A paper that has not been peer-reviewed reaches faulty conclusions to advance the unsubstantiated claim that the novel coronavirus was bioengineered in a Chinese lab, according to immunology and microbiology experts. The paper’s claims were amplified by Fox News, anyway.
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A long-circulating, unsubstantiated claim about the origins of the novel coronavirus resurfaced in recent days after a paper published online purported that SARS-CoV-2 was created in a lab.
The baseless claim — which we first addressed in the early days of the pandemic — was further amplified when Fox News host Tucker Carlson featured an interview with one of the authors of the paper on his show on Sept. 15.
That segment was viewed on YouTube nearly 2 million times and that link alone was shared by more nearly 50,000 users on Facebook, according to CrowdTangle analytics data, where other popular posts also repeated the allegations.
But experts say the new paper, which has not been peer-reviewed, does not prove that the virus was created in a lab.
The paper was to an open-access website Sept. 14 and was published by the “Rule of Law Society & in a filed last year with the state.
