Coronavirus: China retorts, asks Pompeo to produce evidences against Wuhan lab
Beijing : Days after Mike Pompeo claimed that the US has enough evidences to prove that coronavirus was made at a Wuhan laboratory, China has retorted by asking him to make the evidences public.
In recent days, US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo have claimed that the deadly virus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the outbreak was first detected last December.
The US also alleged that China blocked access of the international scientists which shows they wanted to hide things revolving around the origin of the virus.
The claim has drawn fierce rebuttal from Beijing, which on Wednesday described the accusation as “smear” intended to bolster President Trump’s re-election chances in November.
“He (Pompeo) said ‘enormous evidence’. Then show us,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a media briefing here.
“Pompeo cannot present any evidence because he does not have any,” Hua said. “This matter should be handled by scientists and professionals instead of politicians out of their domestic political need?”
The novel coronavirus has so far killed over 2.5 lakh people and infected more than 3.6 million globally. The US is the worst-hit nation with over 71,000 deaths and 1.2 million COVID-19 infections.