Coronavirus: The seven types of people who start and spread viral misinformation

https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-52474347

Conspiracy theories, misinformation and speculation about coronavirus have flooded social media. But who starts these rumours? And who spreads them?

We've investigated hundreds of misleading stories during the pandemic. It's given us an idea about who is behind misinformation - and what motivates them. Here are seven types of people who start and spread falsehoods:

 

Trump Responds to Project Lincoln Ad by Conservatives Who Want Him Out of Office: 'They're All LOSERS'

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-ad-coronavirus-project-lincoln-george-conway-1501942

President Donald Trump called a group of prominent conservatives who oppose him "losers" and defended his record from the right after they launched an advert attacking his response to the coronavirus crisis.

The new ad was paid for by The Lincoln Project, a campaign by former Republicans who split with the party because of Trump and which seeks to thwart the president's re-election, and is called "Mourning in America."

 

Mourning in America

Dr. Fauci Backed Controversial Wuhan Lab with Millions of U.S. Dollars for Risky Coronavirus Research

https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-backed-controversial-wuhan-lab-millions-us-dollars-risky-coronavirus-research-1500741

 Dr. Fauci did not respond to Newsweek's requests for comment. NIH responded with a statement that said in part: "Most emerging human viruses come from wildlife, and these represent a significant threat to public health and biosecurity in the US and globally, as demonstrated by the SARS epidemic of 2002-03, and the current COVID-19 pandemic.... scientific research indicates that there is no evidence that suggests the virus was created in a laboratory."

NIH gives detailed explanation for $3.7 million bat research at center of China mystery

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/coronavirus/nih-gives-detailed-explanation-37-million-bat-research-center-china

Officials at the National Institutes of Health and Fauci's own division there, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), say there is far less to the story than meets the eye.

 

Past Coronavirus Research Grants Are Being Used To Smear Anthony Fauci

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/janelytvynenko/fauci-wuhan-funding-conspiracy

The National Institutes of Health has given millions of dollars to scientists studying coronaviruses. That funding didn't cause the COVID-19 pandemic.

Why US outsourced bat virus research to Wuhan

https://asiatimes.com/2020/04/why-us-outsourced-bat-virus-research-to-wuhan/

US-funded $3.7 million project approved by Trump's Covid-19 guru Dr Anthony Fauci in 2015 after US ban imposed on 'monster-germ' research

 

Failed by Israel, Malki Roth’s parents hope US can extradite her gloating killer

https://www.timesofisrael.com/failed-by-israel-malki-roths-parents-hope-us-can-extradite-her-gloating-killer/

Ahlam Tamimi, who oversaw the 2001 Sbarro bombing that killed Malki and 14 others, was freed in Shalit deal and became a celebrity in Jordan. Now the US just might be on her case

 

No more 100-meter limit; malls, libraries to reopen: All the eased regulations

https://www.timesofisrael.com/malls-libraries-gyms-and-zoos-the-businesses-that-can-reopen-under-new-rules/

Loosened virus restrictions lift distance cap on traveling from home; allow swimming for exercise at the beach; and visits to national parks, nature reserves and heritage sites

 

WHO: Coronavirus likely of bat origin, no sign of lab manipulation

https://www.ynetnews.com/health_science/article/B1fES8nOI

 

World Health Organization says COVID-19 originated in the winged mammals in China sometime last year; still unclear how the virus had jumped the species barrier but it's unlikely to have emanated from a lab in Wuhan

The ‘Getcha’ Sting

https://www.algemeiner.com/2020/05/04/the-getcha-sting/

Nathan Lewin is a criminal-defense attorney with a Supreme Court practice who has taught at Georgetown, Harvard, University of Chicago, George Washington, and Columbia law schools.

I represented one of the men accused in the FBI’s prosecution and tried in federal court in Trenton. Binyamin Stimler joined the group that was filmed and recorded in the FBI’s creation of a crime. He participated only because he was ready to witness and sign the Jewish bill of divorce (get) that Rabbi Epstein hoped would be authorized by the phantom “husband” who was a creature of the FBI’s drama. Judge Wolfson excluded at the trial any evidence of the religious motivation of the defendants because the prosecutors preposterously objected that such evidence would lead to “nullification” of the federal kidnapping law by the overwhelmingly non-Jewish jury. She sentenced my client to 39 months’ imprisonment. He is, thankfully, no longer at Otisville.

Dr. Fauci Dismisses Wuhan Lab as Source of Coronavirus, Contradicting Trump and Pompeo

https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-dismisses-wuhan-lab-source-coronavirus-contradicting-trump-pompeo-1501924

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the scientific face of America's pandemic response, dismissed the theory that coronavirus originated in a lab in Wuhan, contradicting the president and his Secretary of State in an escalating confrontation with China.

"The best evidence shows the virus behind the pandemic was not made in a lab in China," Dr. Anthony Fauci said in an exclusive interview with National Geographic published on Monday. "Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species."

 

Intel shared among US allies indicates virus outbreak more likely came from market, not a Chinese lab

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/04/politics/coronavirus-intelligence/index.html

Intelligence shared among Five Eyes nations indicates it is "highly unlikely" that the coronavirus outbreak was spread as a result of an accident in a laboratory but rather originated in a Chinese market, according to two Western officials who cited an intelligence assessment that appears to contradict claims by President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The assessment from members of the exclusive intelligence-sharing group seems to undermine forceful claims by Trump and Pompeo in recent days, as they have doubled down on the assertion that the outbreak originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, rather than a market in the same region.

The price of reopening the economy: tens of thousands of American lives

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/05/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-economy-models/index.html

 President Donald Trump now knows the price of the haunting bargain required to reopen the country -- tens of thousands more lives in a pandemic that is getting worse not better.

It's one he now appears ready to pay, if not explain to the American people, at a moment of national trial that his administration has constantly underplayed.

Depressing new death toll projections and infection data on Monday dashed the optimism stirred by more than half the country taking various steps to reopen an economy that is vital to Trump's reelection hopes and has shed more than 30 million jobs. Stay-at-home orders slowed the virus and flattened the curve in hotspots like New York and California, but they have so far failed to halt its broader advance, leaving the nation stuck on a grim plateau of about 30,000 new cases a day for nearly a month.