The Politicization of COVID-19 Origin Stories: Insights from a Cross-Sectional Survey in China

Annah Lake Zhu (), Ruishan Chen, Jessica Rizzolo and Xiaodan Li
Additional contact information
Annah Lake Zhu: Environmental Policy Group, Wageningen University, 6706 KN Wageningen, The Netherlands
Ruishan Chen: School of Design, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Jessica Rizzolo: Independent Researcher, Chicago, IL 60614, USA
Xiaodan Li: Environmental Policy Group, Wageningen University, 6706 KN Wageningen, The Netherlands

Societies, 2023, vol. 13, issue 2, 1-20

Abstract: The search for the origins of COVID-19 has yielded no conclusive evidence. In the face of this uncertainty, other social and political factors can influence perceptions of virus origins, which in turn can influence policy formation and global efforts to combat future pandemics. Vastly different COVID-19 origin stories may circulate both within the same country but also between different countries. This article examines COVID-19 origins debates as they circulate in China, drawing from a 974-respondent survey conducted in mainland China. Our results show that within China there is a strong belief that COVID-19 originated outside the country, either in the United States or Europe. This contrasts with mainstream media coverage in the United State and Europe, which generally holds that the virus most likely originated in China. Given such global dissonance, moving forward with pandemic prevention reforms is challenging. Yet, even in the face of such diverse beliefs, building support for reform is still possible. As the search for COVID-19 continues, policy reform can be pursued across a plurality of domains, including wet markets, the wildlife trade, cold-chain products, and gain-of-function virology research, all in the interest of preventing the next global pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19; globalization; pandemic prevention; politics; media; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 A14 P P0 P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/13/2/37/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/13/2/37/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:13:y:2023:i:2:p:37-:d:1057896

Access Statistics for this article

Societies is currently edited by Ms. Farrah Sun

More articles in Societies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().