Letter: Navigating COVID info amid conspiracy theories | Letters to the Editor | indexjournal.com
We are all angry about being subjected to the atrocities caused by the COVID-19 virus. Sometimes the people we are angriest against have nothing to do with why friends and family members have been infected with this disease.
It is easy to pick the low hanging fruit of blame and place it on our previous president. We were told over and over again that this was all a hoax and even after the virus took hold we were told that it would disappear after the 2020 presidential election. Of course it wasn’t a hoax and now we are left with only ourselves to blame if this pandemic cannot be contained.
Blaming ourselves is probably the hardest thing to do when we realize we make a poor decision. I read all the columns in our local newspapers and especially respect the Index-Journal for covering national news, but really enjoy the local focus.
One of the local columnists recently put the blame for this pandemic on “labs,” a rumor which has not been proven or dispelled completely. The column is 11 paragraphs long and six of those paragraphs blame people in a lab for creating this monster. Here is a brief quote from the AP out of Chicago.
“It likely originated in nature. Bats are thought to be the original or intermediary hosts for several viruses that have triggered recent epidemics, including COVID-19. U.S. intelligence agencies also concluded the virus is not man-made.”
Yet, the conspiracy theory persists.
ROBERT KOSTER
Ware Shoals
