U.S. researcher who worked in Wuhan lab calls COVID-19 leak 'unlikely'

The start of the COVID-19 pandemic is "highly unlikely a lab accident," Jonna Mazet, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Davis, who has worked with and trained researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the past, told Business Insider.

Here are four reasons why:

1. The lab's samples don't match the new coronavirus

2. The lab implements rigorous safety protocols

3. The coronavirus is the latest in a long line of zoonotic disease outbreaks

4. Everyday people are more likely to get infected than researchers who wear protection