Photo: ReutersSecretary of State Mike Pompeo has said there is "a significant amount of evidence" that the new coronavirus emerged from a Chinese laboratory. That statement undercut conspiracy theories promoted by anti-China activists and some supporters of President Donald Trump who suggest it was developed in a Chinese government biological weapons laboratory. US officials familiar with intelligence reporting and analysis have said for weeks that they do not believe Chinese scientists developed the coronavirus in a government biological weapons lab from which it then escaped. Pompeo on Thursday said it was not known whether the virus came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a meat market, or somewhere else. Trump said the same day that he was confident it may have originated in a Chinese virology lab, but he declined to describe the evidence.

Source: Otago Daily Times May 03, 2020 21:00 UTC