Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.46640/imr.11.20.10
Bat or Laboratory – revived debates on the Origin of the Coronavirus in June 2021
Suzana Marjanić
orcid.org/0000-0002-6158-3006
; Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
As the debate on the origin of the coronavirus was revived in June 2021, within the well-known dichotomy bat or laboratory, the article provides an overview of the facts we learned in Croatia during the coronavirus pandemic about this unfortunately demonized and alleged cause of the pandemic. One of the reasons for reviving the debate on the unexplained origin of the coronavirus was an article published in May 2021 in the Wall Street Journal based on an unpublished report by US intelligence claiming that three scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) were hospitalized in November 2019 year, almost two months before China reported a new disease. A large impact in the positive media image of bats in Croatia was carried out by the Association for Bat Conservation Tragus, which warned, for example, regarding Zagreb and the so-called good sides of the earthquake (in 2020) since the endangered bat colonies found refuge in the cracks of many Zagreb buildings after the earthquake (cf. Mazija 2021).
Keywords
demonised Chinese bats; the coronavirus pandemic; speciesism
Hrčak ID:
278170
URI
Publication date:
26.5.2022.
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