Even the TV news magazine’s presentation of how that came to be glosses over just how swiftly — and unquestioningly — misinformation became policy.

At issue is $3.7 million that the National Institutes of Health awarded in 2014 to EcoHealth, which conducts research on the sources of pandemics like the coronavirus. One of the foreign partners with whom it works is the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which some have theorized might have accidentally leaked the virus — and which further-flung conspiracy theories suggest might have deliberately manufactured it. The funding was even earmarked specifically for studying bats, which are believed to be the source of this particular coronavirus.

The funding first became an issue on April 11, when the Daily Mail reported documents it had obtained “show the Wuhan Institute of Virology undertook coronavirus experiments on mammals captured more than 1,000 miles away in Yunnan — funded by a $3.7 million grant from the US government.”

While the story tosses out a number of unsubstantiated theories about the role the Wuhan lab might have played in the coronavirus outbreak, one word that curiously doesn’t appear in the story is “EcoHealth,” the name of the company to whom the grant was actually awarded. Nor does the story dwell on the fact that the vast majority of the $3.7 million went to other projects not involving the Wuhan lab. In fact, only about 15 percent of it did.

These particulars would prove elusive in conservative media in the days to come — and would get little airing before President Trump would announce, just six days later, the funding would be terminated.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson offered a brief and strictly accurate summary of the grant on April 13, while citing “quite a bit of evidence quickly accumulating” that the coronavirus originated somewhere besides a Wuhan wet market.

“The Wuhan Institute of Virology is another contender for that,” Carlson said. “Now, new reporting reveals that the lab’s research on bats was funded in part from a $3.7 million grant from the U.S. government. Heard anything more perverse than that today? Probably not.”

But the next day, when Carlson and a Fox colleague went more in-depth on the story, things got more loosey-goosey.

“Despite those warnings,” Fox Business host Lou Dobbs said the next day, “the U.S. National Institutes of Health awarded a nearly $4 million grant to the Wuhan lab studying the virus. What were they thinking?”

Again, the grant wasn’t to the lab; it was to EcoHealth. And the “nearly $4 million” didn’t all go to research at the lab; the vast majority went to projects in other countries.

The same day, Carlson welcomed Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who repeated the incorrect claim that the $3.7 million went to the Wuhan lab.

“The NIH gives this $3.7 million grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Gaetz said. “They then advertise that they need coronavirus researchers. Following that, coronavirus erupts in Wuhan.”

Gaetz added, “What should really trouble viewers is that this is an active grant. This isn’t something of yesteryear. And so I’ve called on [Health and Human Services} Secretary [Alex] Azar to immediately halt this grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

The premise that the full grant went directly to the Wuhan lab was soon brought up by another conservative media outlet — Newsmax — but this time in a question to Trump at a White House coronavirus task force briefing. It, too, suggested the grant be halted.

“There’s also another report that the NIH, under the Obama administration, in 2015 gave that lab $3.7 million in a grant,” the Newsmax reporter said on April 17. “Why would the U.S. give a grant like that to China?”

The reason is because it didn’t — at least not the full amount and not directly. But this didn’t stop Trump from swiftly saying he would terminate the funding.

Trump at first didn’t seem familiar with the situation. “The Obama administration gave them a grant of $3.7 million? I’ve been hearing about that,” Trump said. Then he quickly indicated not just that he’d been hearing about it, but that there were discussions underway and he had reached a decision.

“And we’ve instructed that if any grants are going to that area — we’re looking at it, literally, about an hour ago, and also early in the morning,” Trump said. “We will end that grant very quickly. But it was granted quite a while ago.”

Indeed, it wasn’t until shortly after the briefing that more accurate numbers began to filter out among prominent conservatives, with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) tweeting that he had just confirmed $76,000 in fiscal year 2019 went to the Wuhan lab.

Despite that, at the next day’s briefing Trump repeated the false claim that the $3.7 million had gone to the Wuhan Institute.

“We also talked about the lab in China where, I guess, $3.7 million was given some time ago,” Trump said. “And we’re looking at that very closely.”

A week later, EcoHealth said its funding had indeed been cut — and not just the portion of the funding that involved research at the Wuhan Institute, but all of it.

Still, the misinformation thrived. While lawmakers who wrote letters calling for no further funding involving the lab correctly said it was only part of the $3.7 million, the Washington Times falsely reported on April 22: “The National Institutes of Health issued a $3.7 million grant to pay for coronavirus research at Wuhan in 2015, despite safety warnings from the State Department.”

Trump ally Rudolph W. Giuliani would also claim on April 26 that the awarding of the grant came despite a prohibition on the type of research done in Wuhan. “Back in 2014, the Obama administration prohibited the U.S. from giving money to any laboratory, including in the U.S., that was fooling around with these viruses,” Giuliani said. “Prohibited! Despite that, Dr. [Anthony S.] Fauci gave $3.7 million to the Wuhan laboratory.”

Blaming Fauci personally for the grant is one thing, but the type of research involved was not prohibited. While there was a prohibition on research involving potentially deadly biological agents, this did not apply to “naturally occurring influenza, MERS, and SARS viruses” unless the research could increase the dangers involved.