WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump and some of his officials are flirting with an outlier theory that the new coronavirus was set loose on the world by a Chinese lab that let it escape.
Without the weight of evidence, they’re trying to blame China for sickness and death from COVID-19 in the United States. “More and more, we’re hearing the story,” Trump says.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo adds: “The mere fact that we don’t know the answers — that China hasn’t shared the answers — I think is very, very telling.” A scientific consensus is still evolving.
But experts overwhelmingly say analysis of the new coronavirus’ genome rules out the possibility that it was engineered by humans, as some conspiracy theories have suggested.