Experts in the United States (US) said the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic started spreading in February from a laboratory in China, according to the Daily Mail.
According to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the pandemic came from a lab in Wuhan, China, claiming "enormous evidence" is present.
The former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director said, "the COVID-19 virus was not man-made or genetically modified," in a report from the Daily Mail.
Unintended outcome
Pompeo said on the Daily Mail, "The lab is located near a wet market that has been identified as the likely epicenter of the outbreak that took place late last year."
However, a Russian microbiologist said the scientists at the Wuhan lab did not create the coronavirus with any malicious intent.
Dr. Prof. Peter Chumakov, who teaches at the Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told the Daily Mail, "In China, scientists at the Wuhan Laboratory have been actively involved in the development of various coronavirus variants for over ten years."
He added the scientists were studying the pathogenicity of the coronavirus. They did not deliberately create a manmade killer.
The Science Times reported, "The scientists were possibly aiming for a vaccine for human immunodeficiency viruses or HIV."
Confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the US have shot up to 1.18 million, with over 150,000 recoveries and 68,000 deaths. It has one-third of the number of confirmed cases worldwide, which is now at 3.5 million.
The pandemic "forced states to issue lockdown directives for millions of Americans beginning in mid-March, according to the Daily Mail.
Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov to Russian President Vladimir Putin said it is unacceptable to accuse anyone of creating the coronavirus disease. He told US News, "Scientists and experts still lack necessary data to determine the nature of the novel coronavirus, and any groundless allegations about its artificial origin are unacceptable."
Former Russian health minister Veronika Skvortsova told Channel One it is not easy to determine if people caused the pandemic. "This question is not that easy. It demands a very thorough study," she said on Channel One, which was reported by the Daily Mail.
Tracking a killer
Dr. Peter Forster, a geneticist from the University Of Cambridge, said on the Daily Mail, "it is possible the outbreak did not originate in Wuhan, as until January 17, almost all the isolates were type B."
The Cambridge team is making a timeline of the virus. The earliest case was reported in November 2019. The Guardian previously reported a 55-year-old man from the Hubei province contracted the disease. "The earliest case was 17 November - weeks before authorities announced the emergence of the new virus," the article said.
Geneticist Dr. Peter Forster told Newsweek that "it is possible the outbreak did not originate in Wuhan, as until January 17, almost all the isolates were type B."
Variant A is found in bats, B was the result of the founder event or the establishment of a new population from variant A, and C is a mutation from the secondary strain and spreading to Europe and Australia via Singapore, according to the Science Times.
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