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The United States investigates the origin of the coronavirus 4:20
Washington (CNN) - Intelligence information shared among the Five Eyes nations indicates that it is "highly unlikely" that the coronavirus outbreak has spread as a result of a laboratory accident, but originated in a Chinese market, according to two Western officials who cited an intelligence assessment that appears to contradict claims by United States President Donald Trump and his Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo.
The Five Eyes alliance is made up of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and the countries share a wide range of intelligence in one of the strictest multilateral agreements in the world.
"We believe it is highly unlikely that it was an accident," said a western diplomatic official with intelligence. "It is very likely that it occurred naturally and that the human infection was due to the natural interaction between humans and animals." Countries in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing coalition are uniting around this assessment, the official said, and a second official, from a Five Eyes country, agreed with it. The United States has yet to release a formal evaluation.
The assessment by members of the exclusive intelligence-sharing group appears to undermine the forceful claims of Trump and Pompeo in recent days, as they have further insisted on the claim that the outbreak originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China, in place of a wet market in the same region.
READ : China's wet markets are not what some people think
Pressure is likely to mount on the Trump administration to provide evidence to back up his claim, which he has not done so far despite increasingly aggressive rhetoric from the president and his top diplomat.
A third source, also from one of the Five Eyes nations, told CNN that the level of certainty expressed by Pompeo and Trump is far from the point where the current assessment of Five Eyes is. The source acknowledged that the possibility still exists that the virus originated in a laboratory, but warned that there is still nothing to make it a legitimate theory.
The source added that "clearly the market is where it exploded," but it is not yet clear how the virus reached the market.
But without greater cooperation and transparency from the Chinese, it is impossible to say with complete certainty, added the first official.
The third source said the United States may also not be sharing all of its intelligence. While the vast majority are shared among Five Eyes members, there are information packets that each country keeps for itself.
In an interview with National Geographic published Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country's leading infectious disease expert, said he does not believe the virus originated in a laboratory.
"If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what is out there (scientific evidence) leans very, very strongly towards this, it could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated," Fauci told the magazine, adding that he does not believe that the virus has escaped society from a laboratory.
"... Everything about gradual evolution over time strongly indicates that (this virus) evolved in nature and then leaped between species."
The assessment follows repeated claims by Trump and Pompeo that there is evidence that the virus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
"I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan," Pompeo told ABC News on Sunday.
The US intelligence community released a statement on Thursday saying it is still working to "determine if the outbreak started through contact with infected animals or was the result of a laboratory accident in Wuhan." The statement says that the covid-19 virus was neither created by man nor genetically modified.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the State Department did not respond to CNN's requests for comment.
A senior official at the Office of the National Director of Intelligence (ODNI) said Monday night that the United States has evidence for both theories.
"We regularly share intelligence with our partners about a variety of threats and with covid it is no different," the senior official told CNN. "The Intelligence Community (CI) supports the claim that ODNI launched last Thursday and we underline three points: CI believes the virus started in China. We have two theories and we have evidence of both. We agree that it does not appear to have been intentional. "
The previous Monday, a nationalist tabloid controlled by the Chinese Communist Party rejected claims by the Trump administration that the new coronavirus originated in a laboratory, as the war of words on the pandemic intensifies between Washington and Beijing.
Responding to Pompeo's comments that there was "enormous evidence" to support the theory, China's state-run Global Times newspaper said in an editorial that the former CIA director had "surprised the world with unsubstantiated allegations."
READ : The Trump administration develops plans to punish China for the coronavirus outbreak
"Since Pompeo said his claims are backed by 'enormous evidence', then he should present this supposed evidence to the world, and especially to the American public he continually tries to deceive," the editorial said.
"The truth is, Pompeo has no evidence, and during the Sunday interview, he was bluffing."
CNN contacted the Chinese Foreign Ministry to comment on Pompeo's claims, but received no response. The country is in the midst of a five-day holiday that runs through Tuesday.
Scientists around the world have condemned conspiracy theories suggesting that the coronavirus does not have a natural origin, pointing to studies suggesting that it originated in wildlife.
China has faced criticism at home and abroad for its handling of the virus, especially during the initial outbreak. He was accused of silencing whistleblowers and delaying information to the public about the severity of the crisis.
READ : How did the coronavirus outbreak break out? Markets, biological weapons, bats and other theories of the researchers behind the pandemic
But critics allege that the Trump administration has stepped up efforts to blame China for the global spread of the virus, as it faces increasing criticism in its country for its own handling of the pandemic. To date, USA USA It has recorded more than 1.1 million cases and at least 68,000 covid-19 related deaths.
Intelligence
