After comedian and former “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart said he subscribes to the unproven theory that Covid-19 could have been created in a Wuhan, China, lab, disinformation and conspiracy theory communities are celebrating. In a June 14 interview with former colleague Stephen Colbert, the host of “Late Night” on CBS, Stewart said he believed the pandemic was “more than likely caused by science.” “The disease is the same name as the lab. That’s just a little too weird, don’t you think?” Stewart added, referring to the Wuhan Institute of Virology as the “Wuhan novel respiratory coronavirus lab.”
In response to Stewart stating his opinion on the theory, promoters of disinformation responded as if their ironclad belief in the theory had been vindicated. “Jon Stewart absolutely, positively, without a shadow of a doubt eviscerates the ‘Covid Origins’ narrative on The Colbert Show,” read in part a post to a QAnon-themed Telegram channel with over 19,400 members. The post, which also contained an antisemitic reference, was shared into multiple channels and has been viewed at least 105,000 times. The administrator of another channel, the Spanish-language Noticias Rafapal, which has over 128,500 subscribers and also promotes QAnon content, said after Stewart’s remarks that “the official narrative is dead.” The theory remains under investigation.
In his comments to Colbert, Stewart advanced a misleading argument, suggesting that for Covid-19 to have emerged naturally from Wuhan, where a coronavirus laboratory is located, would be highly improbable. Colbert responded that many virus research facilities focus on diseases endemic to their surroundings, a piece of context also recently emphasized by the authors of an explainer in science journal Nature. That context was also lost in summaries by publications that promote the unproven lab-leak theory, including conservative outlets The Federalist and National Review.
As First Draft’s Stevie Zhang recently noted, uncritically promoting any one of the various aspects of the unproven lab-leak theory while the investigation is still ongoing could have harmful effects. A growing “consensus” about one interpretation, despite few or no material changes in the available evidence, could heighten political pressure on investigators. That, in turn, could compromise efforts to arrive at the truth. — First Draft staff
