For much of the COVID-19 pandemic, the idea that the coronavirus had been made in a lab was long considered taboo, with scientific consensus long supporting a natural origin for the virus.
In keeping with this consensus, social media platforms like Facebook took a stern stance on posts that contradicted it. Since December 2020, Facebook has been removing posts that touted a lab-made origin for COVID-19, amid larger efforts to combat the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories during the pandemic.
However, the social media giant has now backtracked on this decision, according to a report by The Hill.
"In light of ongoing investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and in consultation with public health experts, we will no longer remove the claim that COVID-19 is man-made from our apps," a Facebook spokesperson told The Hill.
"We’re continuing to work with health experts to keep pace with the evolving nature of the pandemic and regularly update our policies as new facts and trends emerge,” the spokesperson said.
The move comes as US President Joe Biden announced a ramped-report to confirm how the virus originated which includes “specific questions” for China.
Over the course of the pandemic, voices claiming a lab-made origin have grown in number. Dr Li-Meng Yan was among the first to argue that the virus may indeed have been manmade; politically, former US President Donald Trump had long touted the lab theory. After a much criticised investigation by a team of WHO experts made a visit to China, but under heavy supervision and with limited access, countries like the US have doubled down on the need for an independent investigation.
China has rejected such allegations, which largely revolve around the role of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which was China’s only level-4 biosafety lab and whose location near the world’s first known hotspot for the virus added to doubts over whether the virus may have been a manmade disaster.
Several scientists have backed a natural origin for the virus, however. A much-cited paper, “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2”, published in Nature in March 2020, claimed to “clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.”
Following US pressure for an independent investigation, China has in turn called for a probe into a possible role of the US in creating the virus. The country had long sought to shift the blame for the virus, initially blaming the US for infecting athletes during the 2019 Military World Games in Wuhan. Now, in a tit-for-tat move, China has called for investigation into the Naval Medical Research Center’s Biological Defence Research Directorate at Fort Detrick in Mayland, US.
"I also want to emphasise that the Fort Detrick base is full of suspicions. There are more than 200 biological laboratories in the United States spreading around the world. How many secrets are there?", Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said, calling on Washington to "immediately cooperate with the World Health Organisation (WHO) on origin tracing research in a scientific manner".
The COVID-19 pandemic has seen over 169 million people contract the virus across the world, leading to over 3.5 million deaths—numbers that are almost certainly under-estimated given the global problem of identifying asymptomatic infections.
