As I sit hunched by my computer on what feels like day 1,000,000,000 of quarantine, I realize that in these times of anxiety and uncertainty, there is one remedy to the impending panic caused by the flood of depressing and ominous new articles: comic relief.

The best way that humanity seems to cope with issues is humor, so humor me as I share some truly mind boggling stories of the origin of COVID-19. While the origin of the virus is still in question, it doesn’t warrant some of the bonkers explanations I’ve seen. People, I know that you suddenly find yourself with a lot of time on your hands, but please, plot a garden, learn to bake bread, anything not so ridiculous as blaming the virus on anywhere from bio-weaponry to the democrats.

“Okay so one of my teachers, not naming any names, has a kinda crazy conspiracy about why Alabama isn’t testing. So, Florida is testing and has confirmed cases of COVID-19, right? Meaning everyone, right before spring break, is cancelling their beach vacation there. But, you know, Alabama doesn’t have any cases, right? And they have beaches, right? If we don’t test, we don’t have cases, and thus our beaches are safe, so people will only come here for spring break. End of conspiracy.”

This one is a little old as it comes before Alabama’s first confirmed case, but it is still incredible. And a little bit scary because of how realistic it seems. On the bright side (at least for the tourism industry), the whole pandemic thing hasn’t stopped the flood on spring break travelers to the beach, so I guess Alabama had nothing to worry about?

“I heard that COVID-19 was engineered by China as a bio-weapon and accidentally got leaked into the ocean and spread through dead fish. It made my day to hear what people can come up with. Imagine making a bio-weapon and then accidentally getting your own population sick. That’s like “the Scottish army invading England because their weak from the plague and then killing half of their own population with the plague they brought back” level stupid.”

I see the conspiracy theorists have been watching a bit too much Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D in their free time.

“No, Cocaine and Bleach won’t cure the coronavirus.”

I’m sorry, you’ve been doing what?

“I have a couple theories. Number one, the Coronavirus is a prank. Think about it! Everything is shutting down until the end of the month. You know what’s after the end of the month? April Fools Day. Theory number two: The Coronavirus is a distraction from something bigger going on. Like if covid-19 was actually as big of a deal as everyone says it is then we would not know about it ya know!!”

VERY bold to admit that these are your own personal theories. Also, a prank with a death toll? Not a good prank. I would advise anyone involved in these shenanigans to stop immediately, it has gone too far and I’d like to return to my senior year, please.

“I heard a teacher say that China manufactured the Coronavirus to sell antibiotics to other countries. This is ridiculous and wrong for many reasons, given that a. it’s incredibly racist and b. the whole point of a virus is that you can’t treat it with antibiotics.”

Lastly, with some devoted holdouts remaining, there is a theory that the democrats are to blame for COVID-19 and are using it to hurt President Trump’s re-election campaign. This might be one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard in my life. Imagine being in a country so entrenched in political party lines that people actually think a pandemic that DID NOT EVEN START IN THE U.S. is a political move. Wow folks, what a world we live in.