The spread of the novel coronavirus, which has infected tens of thousands including political leaders, has proved fertile ground for conspiracy theories around the virus’s origins, with both state media and state leadership helping to raise the prominence of the theory that the virus came from an American lab.
Among the earliest actors to spread the conspiracy that coronavirus was an American biological weapon was the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, whose president, Nicolas Maduro, made the claim on February 28. Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry first posted the story, followed by 40 other posts from 29 separate brands owned by the Venezuelan government the same day. The posts, negative themselves, elicited a strongly negative reaction in their audience with an average score of -0.54 on a scale of -1 to +1. HispanTV, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Spanish broadcaster, which Venezuela has awarded for its work, picked up the same story, inducing a negative response in their audience of -0.33.
General Hossein Salami, who succeeded Soleimani as chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), echoed Maduro’s remarks on March 5, floating the possibility that the virus was an attack against Iran and China. Ansar Allah, a.k.a. the Houthis, amplified the message with several posts recounting Salami’s claims. Iranian media offered support for Salami’s speculation as the week progressed, with PressTV claiming an unnamed CIA officer declared coronavirus was an American invention and the Young Journalists Club claiming an unnamed Russian scientist had determined the same conclusion. On March 12, the leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, without specifically naming the United States, called for increased defensive preparedness for biological attacks “given the evidence that the event may have been a biological attack.” The same day 20 Iranian accounts across 13 brands posted Khameini’s message and both #CoronaFromUSA and the Persian equivalent, کرونا_از_آمریکا# began trending.
The Russian Federation has not given any sort of endorsement to the conspiracy, though state owned media has given airtime to its proponents. The earliest instance was on January 27, when ultranationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky went on a popular nightly political talk show to spread the conspiracy. Posted on YouTube, the video has garnered over 600k views. In the previous two weeks, 70 brands have posted about Maduro and Salami’s claims. Audiences have responded neutrally to the content, which itself was more neutral than Venezuelan reporting, averaging a sentiment of -0.07 for the articles and +0.02 for the audience.
With declarations by state leaders in both Venezuela and Iran, the conspiracy of coronavirus being an American invention has significant potential to become an ingrained part of the global narrative. Russia, with its unparalleled social media machinery, has generally held back from amplifying their allies’ message, but as the coronavirus continues to spread, that very well could change.
