U.S. expert says COVID-19 is not an engineered weapon
Updated 12:28, 08-May-2020
CGTN
01:05

U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo both said that they have seen evidence that the novel coronavirus may have a connection to the Wuhan Institute of Virology but haven't offered any details.

CGTN spoke to Frederic D. Bushman, co-director of the Center for Research on Coronavirus and other Emerging Pathogens, University of Pennsylvania, who said, "There's no reason to think that it's deliberately engineered weapon or something like that." 

He believes that COVID-19 looks very much like other viruses that have spilled over from animals into humans.

In an interview with National Geographic on Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also said there is no scientific evidence the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, was made in a Chinese laboratory. 

And the World Health Organization also reached the same conclusion. "All available evidence suggests the virus has an animal origin and is not a manipulated or constructed virus in a lab or somewhere else," WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said in April.

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