torsdag 7. mai 2020

The Wuhan lab at the center of the US-China blame game: What we know and what we don't

Questions surrounding the origins of the novel coronavirus have sparked a war of words between Washington and Beijing -- and threatens to worsen already strained relations. In recent days, US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have doubled down on the assertion that the virus originated from a laboratory in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the outbreak was first detected last December.

The claim has unsurprisingly drawn fierce rebuttal from the Chinese government, which on Wednesday described the accusation as "smear" intended to bolster Trump's reelection chances. But intelligence shared among the Five Eyes network -- an alliance between United States and four Anglophone allies, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada -- also reportedly appears to contradict the Trump administration's assertion. Here is what we know -- and what we don't know -- about the claims and the laboratory at the center of the controversy.