Pompeo Says ‘Enormous
Evidence’ Links Virus to Wuhan Laboratory
By
May 4, 2020, 12:20 AM
GMT+10
·
Top
diplomat stops short of calling Covid-19 virus man-made
·
Comments as Trump, aides
sharpen criticism of Beijing
Photographer: Hector
Retamal/AFP via Getty Images
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U.S.
Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said “enormous evidence” shows the novel
coronavirus outbreak began in a laboratory in Wuhan, China, and that Beijing
has refused to give international scientists access to learn what happened.
“I can
tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from
that laboratory in Wuhan,” Pompeo said on ABC’s “This Week.” “These are not the
first times that we’ve had a world exposed to viruses as a result of failures
in a Chinese lab.”
Pompeo stopped short of
saying the virus was man-made, noting that he agreed with a report by
the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that ruled out genetic
modification or it having been man-made.
The
virus’s origin has become a flash point in the pandemic and ratcheted up
tensions between the U.S. and China. President Donald Trump has escalated
efforts to attach blame to China as U.S. pandemic deaths pass 66,000.
“I’ve
seen what the intelligence community has said,” said Pompeo. “I have no reason
to believe that they’ve got it wrong.” Pompeo declined to say whether the
Chinese intentionally released the virus.
Trump and his aides sharpened their criticism of
Beijing last week, demanding answers about the virus’s origin. The president
tweeted Friday that some U.S. television networks are “Chinese puppets,” while
his super-political action committee unleashed anti-China ads.
Concast (@NBCNews) and Fake News @CNN are going out of their way to say GREAT
things about China. They are Chinese puppets who want to do business there.
They use USA airwaves to help China. The Enemy of the People!
“China
behaved like authoritarian regimes do, attempted to conceal and hide and
confuse,” Pompeo said on ABC. “It employed the World Health Organization as a
tool to do the same.”
The
secretary said China continued to block access by health experts from the WHO,
as well as U.S. scientists, from getting access to samples of the virus needed
for study.
“This is
an ongoing threat, an ongoing pandemic,” Pompeo said. “The Chinese Communist
Party continues to block access to the Western world, the world’s best
scientists, to figure out exactly what happened.”
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