Plague, poison and witchcraft – how Covid lab leak hysteria could go straight to the Middle Ages

The story of the Covid lab leak is clearly not going to end anytime soon. The theory that the pandemic began with a sudden leak of the virus from a laboratory in Wuhan keeps coming back like clockwork – most recently this week in a report by Senate Republicans in the US . Earlier this year, the US Department of Energy and the FBI supported the same theory. It’s a very modern tale – but as medievalists, we can tell you we’ve been through this sort of thing before, and we must be wary of simplistic narratives of blame.

The laboratory leak theory remains a valid hypothesis to investigate. Yet much of the discussion surrounding it shows evidence of the contagion effect of magical thinking. The concerns still rife in the conservative media seem to echo the growing allegations of poisoning in medieval Europe. These turned to large-scale violence in the mid-14th century, and later legends survive about witches’ ability to create poisonous potions. In an age of antibiotics and scientific explanations, we like to think of ourselves as more advanced than our forefathers. But our research into conspiracy theories and the early history of xenophobia tells a more complex story of how magical thinking continues to shape our response to disasters like pandemics.

Poison powders and plagues Fear of contagious disease or contracting disease by touch often stems from concerns about disease. How many of us didn’t disinfect our groceries or mail during the early months of the pandemic? Our current research, The First Era of Fake News: Witch-hunting, Antisemitism and Islamophobia, examines how myths that emerged during the Middle Ages are still being used to justify modern atrocities. It shows how even the effect of contagion leads to scapegoating and erroneous attributions of blame.

The threat of disease remains buried in many murky layers – as it was the Jewish during the Middle Ages, or the Chinese laboratory today. When Jews were accused of poisoning wells to cause an outbreak of plague in 1348–49, the contagion associated with them was both literal and metaphorical. Jews were accused of making poisonous powders from spiders, toads and human remains – it is ingredients that are included in items invoking hatred and fear of infection. But Jews were also considered suspect simply because they were Jews—foreign religious outsiders who might have connections with co-religionists in other cities, or who might have traveled far from home.

Jews feared contaminating Christian communities with their presence, and medieval preachers were not shy about saying so. We might call this type of transference magical—the fear that simple contact with an unbelieving outsider somehow makes us vulnerable to influences or activities we don’t understand. We should note: In the case of the poisoning allegations, those fears led to the mass slaughter of Jewish communities in Central Europe. Individual Jews were tortured into confessing to crimes, then murdered in their communities.

He was blamed for the spread and devastation of the plague. The effects of contagion readily convinced medieval Christians that a terrible disease must have originated from people already known to be susceptible. There are similar apprehensions about conspiracies and Christianity being the origin of the lab leak pandemic. Blame is a powerful motivator. We continue to be swayed by this idea and rely instead on the unpredictable processes of virus mutation that someone or something is to blame. Even China has embraced this argument, with various suggestions about the virus emerging somewhere (anywhere) outside its borders.

It has also been manipulated for political gains. Donald Trump’s initial scare about the China virus was a convenient distraction from his own administration’s failures in the early days of the pandemic. Like medieval leaders, it is easier for some politicians to assuage public anger and anxiety with stories of blame rather than admit failures and unknowns. There are bad and good reasons for examining the lab-leakage hypothesis. Using doctrine as a way to target and punish enemies is a bad reason.

So it is the a priori belief that there is nefarious intent behind every major event, which is the cornerstone of conspiracy thinking, both ancient and modern. We should be careful of this kind of thinking. It has a tendency to kill people. When Jews in medieval Europe were accused of poisoning wells, many believed that this was done to destroy and eradicate the entire Christian religion. Some questions about the origin of COVID-19 may never be answered. For many, this is a distasteful thought. Yet if we are to intervene in this historical pattern of overreaction, conspiracy theories and blame, we must be honest about the limits of our knowledge.

Disclaimer:IndiaTheNews has not edited this news. This news has been published from PTI-language feed.

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