By Shayan Sardarizadeh and Olga Robinson
26 April 2020

From the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak, conspiracy theories about the origin and scale of the disease were spread on online platforms.

Among these were the false claim that the virus was part of a Chinese "covert biological weapons programme", and a baseless claim that a Canadian-Chinese spy team had sent coronavirus to Wuhan.

The claim that the virus was man-made has been pushed by numerous conspiracy groups on Facebook, obscure Twitter accounts and even found its way on to primetime Russian state TV.

And months into the outbreak, not only have these theories not faded away, but new, unverified claims have been promoted by government officials, senior politicians and media outlets in China and the US.

'Doubts'

Zhao Lijian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, has repeatedly promoted the idea - without evidence - that Covid-19 might have originated in the US.

On 12 March, he said in a tweet that it might have been the US army that brought the virus to Wuhan.

A day later, he tweeted an article by the website Global Research headlined "Further evidence that the virus originated in the US", and urged users to read and share it. The article has since been deleted.

Chinese daily The Global Times echoed Mr Zhao's sentiment. While stressing the diplomat had made the claim in a "personal capacity", his remarks resonated "with similar doubts raised by the Chinese public", the paper said.

Mr Zhao's claims have also been amplified by a number of Chinese embassies and social media users in different parts of the world.

BBC Monitoring's China specialist Kerry Allen said that while Mr Zhao is known for being an outspoken figure - particularly on social media - he has a different persona within mainland China and does not necessarily always represent the view of the leadership.

Founded in 2001 in Canada, Global Research is the website of the Center for Research on Globalization. According to PolitiFact, a US-based independent fact-checking website, Global Research "has advanced specious conspiracy theories on topics like 9/11, vaccines and global warming".

The article Mr Zhao tweeted was penned by regular contributor Larry Romanoff, who reiterates the conclusion from his earlier piece - now deleted - that the virus did not originate in China.

But the Chinese research and articles in the magazine Science that he quotes do not actually call into question China being the place where the outbreak started. Instead, they only suggest that specifically the animal market in Wuhan may not have been the origin of the new coronavirus.

Mr Romanoff also claims that Japanese and Taiwanese scientists "have determined that the new coronavirus could have originated in the US".

But the conclusion appears to be based on a now debunked Japanese TV report from February and claims made on Taiwanese TV by a pharmacology professor-turned-politician from a pro-Beijing party who Mr Romanoff wrongly describes as a "top virologist" on first mention.