US military says coronavirus likely occurred naturally
The US military says that the coronavirus may have occurred naturally, casting doubt on claims that it originated in China.
Army General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Tuesday that US intelligence shows the virus might not have been created in China, a claim Beijing has repeatedly dismissed as a conspiracy theory.
Early in March, a former American counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer of the CIA said the “coronavirus did not occur naturally through mutation but rather was produced in a laboratory, possibly as a biological warfare agent.”
When asked about whether he had any evidence to substantiate such a claim, Milley was non-committal on Tuesday.
“There’s a lot of rumor and speculation in a wide variety of media, the blog sites, etc. It should be no surprise to you that we’ve taken a keen interest in that and we’ve had a lot of intelligence take a hard look at that,” Milley said at a Pentagon news briefing.
“And I would just say, at this point, it’s inconclusive although the weight of evidence seems to indicate natural. But we don’t know for certain.”
Milley’s remarks, however, could again provoke tensions with China whose Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian tweeted last month that the US Army might have “brought the epidemic to Wuhan.”
“When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!” Zhao tweeted in English.
Meanwhile, according to a 2017 Pentagon plan obtained by The Nation, the Pentagon warned the administration of US President Donald Trump years ago about the threat of the coronavirus and the subsequent shortage of medical equipment.
“The most likely and significant threat is a novel respiratory disease, particularly a novel influenza disease,” the military plan stated.
The document, titled “USNORTHCOM Branch Plan 3560: Pandemic Influenza and Infectious Disease Response", specifically refers to the virus on several occasions, in one instant saying, “coronavirus infections [are] common around the world.”
The majority of scientists assert that the coronavirus probably originated in bats but found its way to humans through an intermediary animal.
The disease has so far affected more than 1,900,000 and killed over 126,000.
Over 607,000 have been affected and more than 28,000 have died in the US as of Wednesday morning, according to a Reuters tally.
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