It’s taken over a year, but most people in the United States now agree with former President Donald Trump’s claim that the coronavirus was developed in China, and a quarter believe that it was “released on purpose” to infect the world.
In the latest Economist/YouGov survey, 58% believe that the COVID-19 virus was developed in a Wuhan, China, lab. That is up from 49% a year ago.
And now that President Joe Biden has asked for investigators to go over the Trump administration’s investigation of the origin of the killer virus, even 43% of Democrats believe it began in a Chinese lab, not spread by bats as originally claimed.
Just 13% believe the bat theory, said the poll analysis.
“When it comes to the more specific circumstances of the virus’ emergence, 24% think it was created in a laboratory and was released on purpose, 18% think it was lab-created and escaped by accident, while a further 12% think it was a naturally occurring disease that was being examined in a laboratory but was released by accident. Only 13% agree with what has been the scientific community’s most common explanation for the origin of the virus: that it occurred naturally in the wild and mutated to a human infection,” it said.
