GURUGRAM, India -- By the second week of March, India had only recorded around 50 cases of COVID-19, but the country felt on edge, poised for the outbreak to explode. On social media, rumors had begun to fly.
One claimed that the outbreak had been concocted to hide the spread of a bioweapon, which had been released by accident in Wuhan, China. Another, designed to stoke already heightened social tensions, said that Muslims were deliberately spreading the virus by spitting on bread.
