Top US general says 'no conclusive evidence' on origin of coronavirus

In stark contrast with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s assessment, the top US general said that it is still unknown whether the novel coronavirus originated from a wet market or some laboratory in China. Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a news conference on May 5 that the US government is looking into the issue but indicated that it was probably not intentional.

"We don't have conclusive evidence in any of that, but the weight of evidence is that it was probably not intentional," the chairman said.

However, General Milley called on China to open up and allow inspectors and investigators to visit in full transparency so that the world can know the original source of the virus outbreak. He added that the investigation will allow governments to apply the lessons learned to prevent outbreaks in the future.

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'Remains speculative'

Earlier, the World Health Organisation (WHO) had also said the comments of Pompeo over the origin of the novel coronavirus were “speculative”. During a television interview on May 3, the top US diplomat had said that there is “significant amount” of evidence that the virus originated from a laboratory in Wuhan.

Dr Mike Ryan, WHO’s top emergency expert, told a virtual press conference that the UN health agency has not received any data-specific evidence from the US government relating to the purported origin of the virus. He added that if data and evidence are available, then it will be for the United States government to decide whether and when it can be shared.

“So from our perspective, this remains speculative,” said Ryan.

Read: Mike Pompeo's Comment On Origin Of Coronavirus Remains 'speculative': WHO

The origin of SARS-CoV-2 is not known but preliminary studies suggested that the bats could be the source since the coronavirus present in bats has a genome that is 96 per cent identical to the novel coronavirus. It is believed that pangolin was the immediate host because the bat coronavirus cannot bind to receptors in human cells, however, there has not been any concrete evidence.

Read: China Lambasts Mike Pompeo, Calls His Theory Of Virus Origin 'insane'

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(Image: AP)