Conspiracy theories and Coronavirus

In the age of digital connectivity, conspiracy theories are gaining new highs as social media platforms give fertile ground for it to flourish in no time. Conspiracy theory is an attempt to explain the ultimate cause of some significant events and circumstance with claims of secret plots by certain actors. Sometime the conspiracy theories get so much popular that it tends to outweigh factual base of any incident. And in countries like Nepal where social networking sites are the most dominant form of sharing and consuming information, the conspiracies are established as truth in very short time. Just some days ago there was a photo of Former King Gyanendra, Narendra Modi and Donald Trump together with the news of resurrecting Monarchy in Nepal which was made viral in social media and many so-called intellectual group of Nepal too shared that post in Facebook. And now same phenomena is repeated in case of Corona virus too as this week Facebook walls and stories were flooded with same post as “Dean Koontz 1981 thriller ‘The Eyes of Darkness’ have predicted the coronavirus outbreak”. After witnessing hundreds of such Facebook posts shared by citing various news sources, I actually downloaded the book and went through it. The page may differ accordingly with file type but the second page of chapter 39 reads “It was around then that a Chinese scientist named Li Chen defected to the United States, carrying a diskette record of China’s most important and dangerous: new biological weapon in a decade. They call the stuff ‘Wuhan-400’ because it was developed at their RDNA labs outside of the city of Wuhan, and it was the four-hundredth viable strain of man-made microorganisms created at that research center. “Wuhan-400 is a perfect weapon. It afflicts only human beings. No other living creature can carry it”

Beside this fictional version of conspiracy theory there are two other rumours about corona virus with common string attached: In one version of the rumour, it’s claimed that the virus was engineered in a level 4 research laboratory in Wuhan by humans as a bioweapon. In another version, the virus was being studied in the lab which then “escaped” or “leaked” because of poor safety protocol. The Wuhan Institute of Virology is a real place, and the exact origin of the coronavirus is still a mystery. Moreover, US Senator Tom Cotton triggered such claims by suggesting similar rhetoric that the ongoing spread of coronavirus is connected to research in the disease-ravaged epicentre of Wuhan, China. Mr Cotton referenced the laboratory of Wuhan by saying “We also know that just a few miles away from that food market is China’s only biosafety level 4 super laboratories that researches human infectious diseases”.

Now going back to the book version controversy, some have suggested that the RDNA lab as mentioned in the fictional book could be referring to Wuhan Institute of Virology which is one of the level four biosafety laboratory in China. For the conspiracy theorist, the name ‘Wuhan 400’ mentioned in the book stuck as primary click to regard it as prediction of Coronavirus which was also epicentred in Wuhan. It can be a mere coincidence because as mentioned in the fiction, the Wuhan-400 was developed as a bioweapon with 100% fatality rate but COVID-19 has a fatality rate of 0.2 percent. While the Wuhan-400 only has four-hour incubation period, the COVID-19 requires an incubation period between 2 to 14 days. It’s not a big deal to have such coincidences but the matter get serious when people believe it as fact. I’ve noticed some people deploring China in Facebook comment for creating deadly virus. Such online response from Nepali side not only makes us the victim of conspiracy theory but it will also hamper the people-to-people relation between Nepal and China.

After the thrive of social media, Nepal is living in a post-truth world where conspiracy theories sometime tends to weight more than facts and rationality. There are many examples in history where conspiracy theories have resulted significant consequences. For example, in US presidential election many online conspiracy theories and fake news put voters exposed to incorrect information and they made choices they otherwise would not have made in the voting booth. Similarly, regarding Corona virus predictions as bio-weapon made by China, we should not believe unless it comes with reliable evidence. In serious note, till date more than 95,500 coronavirus cases have now been reported as the death toll passes 3,286 along with more cases confirmed in South Korea, Italy, Japan and Iran this week. So it’s time for Nepal to collectively fight back the epidemic rather than spending efforts in discussing and sharing conspiracy theories.