{"id":10642,"date":"2020-04-16T19:22:30","date_gmt":"2020-04-16T16:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/?p=10642"},"modified":"2020-04-16T19:22:32","modified_gmt":"2020-04-16T16:22:32","slug":"trump-says-u-s-investigating-whether-virus-came-from-wuhan-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/?p=10642","title":{"rendered":"Trump says U.S. investigating whether virus came from Wuhan lab"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday his government is trying to determine whether the coronavirus emanated from a lab in Wuhan, China, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Beijing \u201cneeds to come clean\u201d on what they know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\"\"
U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the daily coronavirus task force briefing in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 15, 2020. REUTERS\/Leah Millis<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The source of the virus remains a mystery. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Tuesday that U.S. intelligence indicates that the coronavirus likely occurred naturally, as opposed to being created in a laboratory in China, but there is no certainty either way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fox News reported on Wednesday that the virus originated in a Wuhan laboratory not as a bioweapon, but as part of China\u2019s effort to demonstrate that its efforts to identify and combat viruses are equal to or greater than the capabilities of the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This report and others have suggested the Wuhan lab where virology experiments take place and lax safety standards there led to someone getting infected and appearing at a nearby \u201cwet\u201d market, where the virus began to spread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a White House news conference Trump was asked about the reports of the virus escaping from the Wuhan lab, and he said he was aware of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are doing a very thorough examination of this horrible situation that happened,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked if he had raised the subject in his conversations with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump said: \u201cI don\u2019t want to discuss what I talked to him about the laboratory, I just don\u2019t want to discuss, it\u2019s inappropriate right now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump has sought to stress strong U.S. ties with China during the pandemic as the United States has relied on China for personal protection equipment desperately needed by American medical workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As far back as February, the Chinese state-backed Wuhan Institute of Virology dismissed rumors that the virus may have been artificially synthesized at one of its laboratories or perhaps escaped from such a facility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pompeo, in a Fox News Channel interview after Trump\u2019s news conference, said \u201cwe know this virus originated in Wuhan, China,\u201d and that the Institute of Virology is only a handful of miles away from the wet market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe really need the Chinese government to open up\u201d and help explain \u201cexactly how this virus spread,\u201d said Pompeo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Chinese government needs to come clean,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The broad scientific consensus holds that SARS-CoV-2, the virus\u2019 official name, originated in bats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump and other officials have expressed deep skepticism of China\u2019s officially declared death toll from the virus of around 3,000 people, when the United States has a death toll of more than 20,000 and rising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He returned to the subject on Wednesday, saying the United States has more cases \u201cbecause we do more reporting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo you really believe those numbers in this vast country called China, and that they have a certain number of cases and a certain number of deaths; does anybody really believe that?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(This story refiles to remove extraneous word pushed in paragraph 9)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reporting by Steve Holland and David Brunnstrom; Editing by Stephen CoatesOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-health-coronavirus-trump-china\/trump-says-us-investigating-whether-virus-came-from-wuhan-lab-idUSKCN21Y01B<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday his government is trying to determine whether the coronavirus emanated from a lab in Wuhan, China, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Beijing \u201cneeds to come clean\u201d on what they know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10643,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[362,357],"tags":[364,368,359,371,367,363],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/trump.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10642"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10642"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10644,"href":"https:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10642\/revisions\/10644"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldinvestigations.ru\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}