iStock Coronavirus caused global panic as the news of the outbreak spread.

A Bioweapon Or Effects Of 5G? 7 Conspiracy Theories Around Coronavirus That Will Shock You







Autoplay Autoplay 1 of 8 The Biggest Humanitarian Crisis The coronavirus outbreak has brought the world to a halt. With over 471,794 positive cases and 21,297 deaths, COVID-19 outbreak has caused global panic. Italy, Iran, US happen to be the worst hit countries in addition to China, which is the epicentre of the outbreak.



As the phrase goes, the ‘streets are talking’ and rumour mills are running overtime. Several sceptics and tin foil hat bearers have been speculating and there are plenty of coronavirus conspiracy theories doing the rounds on the Internet.



Here are some of the most spine-chilling, eerie and scary conspiracy theories surrounding COVID-19.

The Chinese Cover-Up Ever since the news about the coronavirus was picked up by global media, speculations about the communist government of China trying to ‘cover-up’ the outbreak and hide the official figures were rife.



The fact that the Chinese Government tried to suppress the attempts of the whistleblowers (the insiders as well as eight doctors), who tried to warn the public of the pandemic, is rather alarming and didn’t help their cause.



While the rumours of the Chinese cover-up are unsubstantiated, once can only think about the popular proverb, ‘there’s no smoke, without fire’.

Coronavirus Predicted In A Novel This theory, in all probability, is the scariest one and will send chills down your spine. Soon after the news of the outbreak broke, several users started pointing out that a passage from the 1981 book ‘The Eyes of Darkness’ by Dean Koontz eerily predicts the Coronavirus outbreak.



The photograph of the passage from the book went viral in no time and netizens couldn’t help but freak out because the resemblance was uncanny and the evidence was hard to dismiss.



To give you some background, the plot is based around a mother who attempts to find out what happened to her son after he mysteriously disappeared on a camping trip. It turns out that the boy is held in China – more specifically in Wuhan - the site of a deadly virus outbreak.



In the passage, a character named Dombey narrates an account of a virus called ‘Wuhan-400’ which was developed at the RDNA lab outside the city of Wuhan, and ‘ it was the four-hundredth viable strain of man-made microorganisms created at that research centre’.



The passage then gives intricate details about how the virus affects the human body. The chilling accuracy with which this 1981 book predicts the outbreak and the resemblance between ‘Wuhan-400’ and Coronavirus is eerie to say the least. Is Coronavirus A Bioweapon? The Internet was brimming with conspiracies about the coronavirus, and, perhaps, one of the most prominent ones was that the virus could be a bioweapon. According to an ET Prime report, a group of Chinese scientists in Canada were accused of spying and were stripped of their access to Canada’s National Microbiology Lab (NML) which is known to work on some of the most deadly pathogens.



The alleged ‘policy breach’, highlighted the bioweapon program of other countries including China. Dr Francis Boyle, the creator of Bio Weapons Act, also claims that ‘the coronavirus is an offensive biological warfare weapon with DNA-genetic engineering’.



Again, the claims about coronavirus being a biological weapon are unsubstantiated.



Also Read: Is your beard putting you at risk of coronavirus?



Origins in the seafood market? Scientists haven’t been able to determine the origin of COVID-19 but speculations are rife that the virus originated in the seafood market. This was substantiated by reports from Chinese health authorities and the World Health Organization which said that “most” cases had links to the seafood market, which was closed on 1 January.



Sceptics on the online forums, however, have been sharing suspicions that the virus could have originated from Wuhan, Institute of Virology, which houses China’s only level- four biosafety laboratory (the highest-level classification of labs that study the deadliest viruses).



The first prominent personality to come out publicly and support the theory was the US senator Tom Cotton who appeared on Fox News to allege that the virus could indeed have originated from the lab.



Several netizens have also been alleging that this was an attempt to control the Chinese population. However, the claims are unsubstantiated.



WASHINGTON: Researchers have for the first time described the pathology of the Chinese coronavirus which has so far killed 3,000 people and infected nearly 80,000 globally since its origin in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019.The research, published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, describes two patients who recently underwent lung surgery, and were found to have had novel coronavirus COVID-19, also known as SARS-CoV-2.Their lungs exhibited edema, liquid proteinaceous secretions, fibrous connective tissue lesions with patchy inflammation, and multinucleated giant cells, the scientists , including those from the University of Chicago Medicine in the US, said."This is the first study to describe the pathology of disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, or COVID-19 pneumonina, since no autopsy or biopsies had been performed thus far," said study co-author Shu-Yuan Xiao from the University of Chicago Medicine."This would be the only descriptions of early phase pathology of the disease due to this rare coincidence. There would be no other circumstance that this will happen. Autopsies will only show late or end stage changes of the disease," Xiao said.Since both the patients did not exhibit symptoms of pneumonia at the time of surgery, these changes likely represent an early phase of the lung pathology of COVID-19 pneumonia, the researchers said.According to the study, one of the patients was a woman of 84 years of age who was admitted for treatment evaluation of a tumour measuring 1.5 centimeters in the right middle lobe of the lung, which was discovered on chest CT scan.Despite comprehensive treatment, assisted oxygenation, and other supportive care, the researchers said her condition deteriorated, and she died.Subsequent clinical information confirmed that she was exposed to another patient in the same room who was found to be infected with COVID-19.The second patient was a 73-year-old man, who appeared for elective surgery for lung cancer, in the form of a small tumour in the right lower lobe of the lung, the study said.Nine days after lung surgery, he developed a fever with dry cough, chest tightness, and muscle pain, and a test for COVID-19 came back as positive.The scientists said he gradually recovered and was discharged after twenty days of treatment in the infectious disease unit.These two cases, the researchers said, typify a common scenario during the earlier phase of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, during which a significant number of healthcare providers became infected in hospitals in Wuhan, and patients in the same hospital room were cross-infected.They said the presence of early lung lesions days before the patients developed symptoms, corresponds to the long incubation period -- usually 3-14 days -- of COVID-19."We believe it is imperative to report the findings of routine histopathology for better understanding of the mechanism by which the SARS-CoV-2 causes lung injury in the unfortunate tens and thousands of patients in Wuhan and worldwide," Xiao said.