Virus origin: Pompeo points at Wuhan lab

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has said that “enormous evidence” shows that the coronavirus outbreak began in a laboratory in Wuhan, China. He didn’t provide any proof for his claims, though.

“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, saying that he agreed with a report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that ruled out genetic modification.

“I’ve seen what the intelligence community has said,” said Pompeo. “I have no reason to believe that they’ve got it wrong.”

Meanwhile, prisons in the US that hold the world’s largest number of incarcerated people have been tormented by a wave of coronavirus infections and fatalities.

More than 14,400 inmates have been infected and some 215 have died, said Marshall Project, a non-partisan news organisation. Official numbers from the Bureau of Prions showed 1,919 cases and 37 fatalities.