NEW YORK: Claims promoted by the
Trump administration that the global
coronavirus pandemic originated at the
Wuhan Institute of Virology in the central Chinese city are a “pure fabrication,” the institute’s director said. Wang Yanyi was quoted by state media on Sunday as saying the institute did not have “any knowledge before that nor had we ever met, researched or kept the virus...We didn’t even know about the existence of the virus, so how could it be leaked from our lab when we didn’t have it?”
President
Donald Trump and Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo have repeatedly said they suspect the virus that was first detected in Wuhan was somehow released from the laboratory.
Most scientists say the pathogen that has infected 5.3 million and killed more than 342,000, according to a tally by
Johns Hopkins University, was passed from bats to humans via an intermediary species likely sold at a wet market in Wuhan late last year. The virus’ toll continued to ebb in Asia and other parts of the world, with
China on Sunday reporting three new confirmed cases and just 79 people remaining in treatment for
Covid-19.
The city of Wuhan conducted 1,146,156 nucleic acid tests on May 23, the local health authority said . Wuhan began a campaign on May 14 to look for asymptomatic carriers after confirming on May 9-10 its first cluster of Covid-19 infections since the city's release from a lockdown on April 8.