Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that the most likely origin of the coronavirus outbreak was a wildlife wet market as he called for an independent review into the origins of the pandemic.
“The most likely (origin) has been in a wildlife wet market,” he said Tuesday.
“What’s really important is that we have a proper review, an independent review, which looks into the sources of these things in a transparent way so we can learn the lessons and to ensure that, were there to be a virus pandemic potential that would originate anywhere else in the world, we can learn the lessons from that,” he said.
“That’s what Australia is focused on.”
Two leading theories: Morrison’s comments follow recent claims from the Trump administration that the novel coronavirus originated from a laboratory, despite scientists in both China and the West saying the virus likely originated in bats.
A senior official in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) acknowledged Monday night that the US has evidence to support both leading theories of where the Covid-19 outbreak originated.
One theory is that the virus came from an accident in a lab in Wuhan, China, and the other is that the outbreak started in a market in the city.
The official also noted the outbreak “does not appear to have been purposeful.”
In a statement Thursday, the ODNI said that the “Intelligence Community also concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the Covid-19 virus was not man-made or genetically modified.”
Scientists in China and the West have pointed to research indicating that the virus is likely to have originated in bats and jumped to humans from an intermediate host — just like its cousin that caused the SARS epidemic in 2002 and 2003.
