Fact and fiction in a fake news epidemic

Only science, free from politics, can help us understand the origins of the virus

Was this the smoking gun? “Chinese military scientists discussed weaponising SARS coronaviruses” was the headline of a report in The Australian, which flashed on my WhatsApp one morning this week. Before noon, I’d received the report from half a dozen people with the familiar prescription: “Must read!” The report said it had unearthed a leaked document written by Chinese military scientists speaking of weaponising coronaviruses, confirming what has for long been suspected by conspiracy theorists ever since the pandemic began in Wuhan, China. But there was a small catch. The secret document cited in the report was from a not-so-secret book published in China in 2015, which is still available in Chinese bookstores. It also turned out that the authors, including Xu Dezhong, formerly a professor at the Air Force Medical University, were speaking of the first SARS epidemic being “weaponised” not by China, but by foreign powers unleashing a virus on the Chinese population. Not that these two details made much of a difference as the story continued to go, well, viral.