China has ramped up its disinformation campaign and is now releasing videos in the Middle East promoting the conspiracy theory that the United States is responsible for the coronavirus.
In one video published on YouTube on March 17 by the Chinese state-owned China Global TV Network’s Arabic channel, a woman who goes by the name “Ms. V” is seen speaking in Arabic and spreading disinformation about the origin of the coronavirus, blaming it on the United States. The video, which is titled “Is the new Corona virus made by the United States of America?” according to the provided English subtitles, is directed towards a Middle Eastern audience.
The video could be aimed to stoke up tensions between the Middle East and the United States.
In the video, “Ms. V” notes that many people believe the fact that the virus originated in a wet market in Wuhan, China. However, she says that there is evidence that “patient zero” originated outside China without presenting any evidence.
She states, without evidence, that “it is clear that the virus in China was transmitted from abroad.”
“Ms. V” then reinforces conspiracy theory that the United States military spread the virus during the 2019 Military World Games, which took place in Wuhan. She elaborated by saying that “it makes sense” that the virus would have originated in the country where there are the most infections.
While the number of confirmed cases in the United States is the most in the world, experts believe U.S. rivals and adversaries are lying about their numbers, including China and Iran.
China claims it has limited the spread of the virus to just over 80,000 in the past month, which given its population size of 1.3 billion, has experts questioning the legitimacy of those reports. That skepticism was raised when China changed its reporting of cases from Wuhan, showing 50 percent more cases than originally reported.
It is universally accepted that the coronavirus’ origin was in Wuhan, China, where it was first detected. The first cases of coronavirus were in Wuhan, as well as the first deaths. China punished whistleblowers who tried to warn the world about the virus, and some had mysteriously disappeared while others had died from the virus.
One of the early Chinese doctors who blew the whistle on the coronavirus outbreak, which originated in Wuhan, China, allegedly died from the coronavirus.
In a more recent case, another Chinese doctor has gone missing after saying boss tried to silence her early warnings about the coronavirus, raising fears that she has silently been detained by Chinese authorities, the New York Post reported.
The doctor, Ai Fen, is the head of the emergency department and pointed out that colleagues had been ill at the Wuhan hospital. Reportedly eight of them had also been reprimanded for it. Ai’s whereabouts are currently unknown.
More than 2.3 million people have been infected by the deadly virus worldwide and there have been more than 160,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins’ latest tracking data.
