U.S. intelligence authorities said Thursday that the new coronavirus was not manmade, but they will continue to examine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or can be blamed on a laboratory in China.
The announcement by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence came as the administration of President Donald Trump is taking aim at the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a possible source of the pandemic that has killed more than 220,000 people worldwide.
In the press release, the office said that the intelligence community "concurs with the wide scientific consensus" that the virus was "not manmade or genetically modified."
But it added that the community will "continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan."
Trump, who is seeing the U.S. economy devastated by the virus-triggered shutdown ahead of the November election, has grown critical of China for failing to take appropriate steps to stop the virus from spreading worldwide.
He reiterated to reporters on Thursday that the virus "should have never been allowed to escape China" and that "they should have stopped it at the source."
The Wuhan Institute of Virology is located about 30 kilometers from a seafood market where the virus is believed to have started its rapid spread.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang on Thursday denied rumors that the lab accidentally leaked the virus collected from bats, citing a researcher of the institute who stressed that the institute "strictly follows biosafety procedures."
The researcher was also quoted as saying that the institute does not have the capability to design and synthesize the virus.
"I'd like to emphasize that tracing the origin of the virus is a complex matter of science, which should be studied by scientists and professionals," the spokesman said.
"We urge American politicians to stop shifting the blame to China and diverting the attention of the international community. They should be focusing on containing the epidemics at home," he added.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday said at a press conference that the United States does not know precisely where the virus originated from and complained that the world has not gained access to the institute in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
He also pointed to "multiple labs" that are believed to continue to conduct work on "contagious pathogens inside of China today" and that the United States doesn't know "if they are operating at a level of security to prevent this (pandemic) from happening again."
