Covid-19 and Conspiracy Theory?

2020-03-23
Author: Idris Khelo

Conspiracy theory easily finds a fertile ground for proliferation and spread when individuals, governments and relevant research institutions are unable to provide logical and scientific evidence to explain an event according to the scientific method. Hence, popular analysis combined with theological beliefs triumphs over the institutional scientific analysis, and thus the interpretation of the action comes out of the scientific method approach to the approach of conspiracy theory and divine punishment. In general, conspiracy theory is more like a myth in terms of the scientific method because it is not based on material evidence, but rather, it is based on the interpretation of the event according to the Rule of Thumb and the Rule Who benefits from the event?
In light of the intensive efforts of the governments and research centers encountering the serious Covid-19 pandemic, which has claimed the lives of 16,322 people so far, leaving the world amazed and in a complete status of uncertainty and fear; as a result, it made the countries in which the virus has significantly prevailed, pay heavy economy arrears and witness serious political and social crises. Millions of people are detained at their homes and towns, and tens of thousands other are being held at hospitals, and if it was not for social media, millions of people would be stranded.
The ''smart'' and ''insidious'' virus has politically revived the conspiracy theory again. According to academic Frank. B. Mittens, because the conspiracy theory serves political factions, many media and local outlets concluded that the virus is germ warfare launched by the United States against China within trade war context, as well as in the context of its war and its persistent hostility against Iran. However, the transmission of the virus to the United States of America and the European Union Republics has suppressed the hyperbole of conspiracy theorists who still practice their work and find supporters.
Throughout history, epidemics were described as a conspiracy targeting political, religious and societal actors around the world. When Plague epidemic reached Europe, a rumor had it that the Jews put poison in the wells to control the world, and political and religious parties supported this rumor and this resulted in creating a discourse of hatred against the Jews. In addition, after the spread of the Spanish Flu Pandemic, many believed and linked its emergence to being planned by the Germans, and they called it "German poison". Furthermore, during the Cold War, the Soviet Intelligence Service promoted a rumor saying that the United States had developed AIDS as a biological weapon and tested it on prisoners and members of minorities. The Russian Federation promoted the idea that the United States was behind the Ebola epidemic incidence, even after the fall of the Soviet Union.
As for Covid-19, this epidemic has placed people between two different worlds; the world of myth and the world of conspiracy theories. In light of the complete status of international inability to discover the true causes of the virus and its appropriate treatment, many have related it to religious myths and prophecies, and that some countries being stood behind its spread. However, in fact, the virus has proved the world's poor medical abilities to face epidemics, by way of if the only way to deal with the disease is to revive cooperation values as the best possible solution to address it in light of the weak financial capabilities that many countries cannot offer to limit the spread of the disease, where this the lease thing that can be done to stand against myth and marketing conspiracy theories.