U.S. expert says COVID-19 is not an engineered weapon

01:05

U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo both said that they have seen evidence that the novel coronavirus may have a connection to the Wuhan Institute of Virology but haven't offered any details.

CGTN spoke to Frederic D. Bushman, Co-director of the Center for Research on Coronavirus and other Emerging Pathogens, University of Pennsylvania. Frederic said, "There's no reason to think that it's deliberately engineered weapon or something like that." He believes that COVID-19 looks very much like other viruses that have spilled over from animals into humans.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseasesalso said there is no scientific evidence the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2,was made in a Chinese laboratory in an interview with National Geographic on Monday.

And the World Health Organization reached the same conclusion."All available evidence suggests the virus has an animal origin and is not a manipulated or constructed virus in a lab or somewhere else," WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said in April.

Check out

The China Report

, our new weekly newsletter.Subscribe here!