On April 30, U.S President Donald Trump said that he has seen evidence suggesting that the coronavirus originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China. He also criticized the World Health Organization's connection to Beijing, comparing the organization to a public relations agency.
Trump accuses WHO of covering up Wuhan laboratory
President was speaking to numerous reporters about protecting the senior citizens of America when he was asked if he had any information about the outbreak and if there is evidence that it originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Trump said without further explanation that he does have evidence that the virus originated from Wuhan and that the WHO should be ashamed of themselves for acting like a public relations agency for China. A few weeks ago during one of his briefings, he speculated about whether China knew about the coronavirus sooner than what is reported and deliberately withheld information about the pandemic.
President Trump said that China is trying to be transparent, but the U.S government will still investigate to find out more. He added that the outbreak is a terrible thing that happened, whether China made a mistake or whether it started as a mistake and the country made another virus or if someone did it on purpose.
Intelligence officials confirmed on April 30 that an investigation has been ongoing into whether the pandemic was the result of an accident at the Wuhan lab, although there have been speculations that the virus originated at a wet market in the Wuhan.
A statement from the office of acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell read that the entire Intelligence Community has been consistently providing critical support to U.S policymakers and those responding to the COVID-19 virus which originated in China. The statement also said that the Intelligence Community also concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the virus was not man-made nor genetically modified.
U.S officials have ruled out the possibility that the coronavirus was created by China was a bio-weapon. Some stated that the pathogen may have escaped from the lab amid China's efforts to identify and combat the virus either with greater capabilities or the same capabilities as the United States.
The blame game
Trump added in his briefing on April 30 that the world is suffering greatly while talking about China's response to the outbreak. He said that the virus could have been contained at the original location, and either China was not able to or they chose not to.
After he praised China's response, he started blaming Beijing in an attempt to divert scrutiny over his own administration's handling of the pandemic, according to some Democrats. America has issues with a shortage of test kits and sometimes contradictory statements between the members of his coronavirus task force and Trump.
The Democratic National Committee said in a statement that Trump is desperate to distract the voters by blaming Beijing and that he refuses to call out China on its coronavirus response and Americans are suffering the dire consequences of the outbreak.
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