Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has been one of the most disruptive and painful phenomena of the last few decades. As of July 2021, the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that caused the outbreak remain a mystery. This work analyzes the prevalence in news media articles of two popular hypotheses about SARS-CoV-2 virus origins: the natural emergence and the lab-leak hypotheses. Our results show that for most of 2020, the natural emergence hypothesis was favored in news media content while the lab-leak hypothesis was largely absent. However, something changed around May 2021 that caused the prevalence of the lab-leak hypothesis to substantially increase in news media discourse. This shift has not been uniformed across media organizations but instead has manifested itself more acutely in some outlets than others. Our structural break analysis of daily news media usage of terms related to the laboratory escape hypothesis provides hints about potential sources for this sudden shift in the prevalence of the lab-leak hypothesis in prestigious news media.
Highlights
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused enormous amounts of human suffering worldwide
Conclusive supportive evidence for the natural emergence hypothesis has not yet materialized, as no signs of prior intermediate host infection with COVID-19 have been found despite an intensive search (Wade 2021)
The results presented here suggest that for most of 2020, popular news media outlets mostly ignored or downplayed the possibility of a lab-leak as a reason for the virus outbreak
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused enormous amounts of human suffering worldwide. As of July 2021, the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that caused the outbreak remain unknown. There are two popular competing hypotheses about such origin. One asserts that the virus probably leaped naturally from wildlife to people (Calisher et al 2020; Andersen et al 2020). The other proposes that the virus might have accidentally leaked from a biolab (Bloom et al 2021; Wade 2021). No conclusive evidence for either hypothesis has yet been uncovered. Determining which hypothesis is correct is critical to prevent a similar outbreak reoccurring again in the future with its associated catastrophic loss of human life
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