When people know how Covid-19 probably started, they are more likely to support wildlife conservation

While many scientists think COVID-19 jumped from animals to humans, which can be more likely to happen as we deplete natural environments, the idea that it came from a biosecurity lab in Wuhan persists. Ganga Shreedhar and Susana Mourato (LSE) showed people different articles about the origin of the virus and found that they were more likely to support wildlife conservation policies if the link with human actions was made clear. Telling them about the lab theory reduced that support, even when articles contained information about animal to human transmission.