US Foreign Minister Mike Pompeo said Sunday there was " significant evidence " that the new coronavirus came from a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the cradle of the pandemic.
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" There is immense evidence that this is where it started," the US secretary of state insisted on ABC, refusing to say whether he thought the virus had been intentionally released by Beijing. " China is known for its propensity to infect the world and to use substandard laboratories ," he said. " It is not the first time that the world has been endangered by viruses from Chinese laboratories ."
Mike Pompeo also said he regretted the lack of cooperation from the Chinese authorities to shed light on the origin of the pandemic. " They continue to prevent access to the West, to the best doctors, " he denounced. “ We have to be able to go there. We still don't have the virus samples we need . ”
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President Donald Trump had already linked the new coronavirus to the Wuhan Institute of Virology on Thursday and threatened China with punitive taxes.
