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For more than a year, the theory that the COVID-19 pandemic began with the leak of a previously unknown coronavirus from a laboratory at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology in late 2019 was roundly, even vociferously, dismissed by many scientists and most in the news media.
A New York Times report called it a conspiracy theory. Facebook deemed it false and took down posts making that claim. The (Poynter-owned) fact-checking site PolitiFact dismissed it as “inaccurate and ridiculous. We rate it Pants on Fire!” (a term reserved for its most discredited assertions).
These conclusions were published despite the fact that the virus’ origin had not been definitively identified. The Wuhan Institute of Virology, located in the city where COVID-19 first surfaced, engages in cutting-edge studies of coronaviruses. But from the start of the pandemic, the Chinese government shared little information and blocked independent inquiries into the source of the outbreak.