WHO Says Has No Proof From US On Wuhan Lab Claims

We have not received any data or specific evidence from the US government relating to purported origin of the virus so from our perspective, this remains speculative, says Michael Ryan

- Michael Ryan

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said that Washington had provided no evidence to support “speculative” claims by the US president that the new coronavirus originated in a Chinese lab.

“We have not received any data or specific evidence from the United States government relating to the purported origin of the virus − so from our perspective, this remains speculative,” WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan told a virtual briefing.

Scientists believe the killer virus jumped from animals to humans, emerging in China late last year, possibly from a market in Wuhan selling exotic animals for meat.

Top US epidemiologist Anthony Fauci echoed the WHO’s statement in an interview published on Monday evening by National Geographic.

“If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what’s out there now, (the scientific evidence) is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated,” Fauci told the magazine.

“Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that (this virus) evolved in nature and then jumped species,” he said.