President Donald Trump, on Thursday, asserted that he had seen information indicating the Wuhan Institute of Virology is behind the Coronavirus outbreak. Wuhan is the Chinese city where the Coronavirus pestilence started.
The US and other countries have blamed China for the coronavirus pandemic, alleging the country did not alert the rest of the world to the disease in time and that it mismanaged the spread of the virus, but China has repeatedly refuted these allegations.
The US president, Donald Trump made the assertion while speaking with journalists from the White House on Thursday. He, however, did not provide any details to buttress his assertion.
“Yes I have,” Trump responded when asked if he had seen any information that the virus originated from the laboratory, adding that the “World Health Organisation should be ashamed of themselves”.
Asked to provide more details, the US president replied: “I can’t tell you that. I’m not allowed to tell you that.”
The office of the director of national intelligence earlier said it “will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan”.
It, however, said it agreed “with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not man-made or genetically modified”.
Defending its focus on the Chinese lab, the Hogan Gidley, White House spokesman, had said: As the president has said, the United States is “thoroughly investigating this matter.”
“Understanding the origins of the virus is important to help the world respond to this pandemic but also to inform rapid-response efforts to future infectious disease outbreaks.” He said.
Since it emerged in China in December last year, Coronavirus is continuing its spread across the world, with more than three million confirmed cases in 185 countries. More than 200,000 people have lost their lives.
The United States alone has more than one million confirmed cases – five times as many as any other country.
The virus, which causes the respiratory infection Coronavirus, was first detected in the city of Wuhan, China, in late 2019.
It is spreading rapidly in many countries and the number of deaths is still climbing.
