Russia is pushing back against accusations that the coronavirus was created in a Chinese lab, rather than found in nature, calling it “unacceptable” to make such a allegation.
“In the situation where there is not enough information that has been supported and checked by science … We think it is unacceptable, impossible to groundlessly accuse anyone,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russia’s Sputnik news on Wednesday.
China’s government has denied the virus leaked from one of two Wuhan laboratories engaged in extensive research on deadly bat coronaviruses, releasing a video interview by state-run television with the director of one of the labs over the weekend insisting there is “absolutely no way that the virus originated from our institute.”
President Trump and top Pentagon officials last week confirmed U.S. intelligence is looking into the controversy over the origins of COVID-19.
China has conducted extensive research into bat coronaviruses and according to Chinese scientific studies has isolated hundreds of new animal viruses, including coronaviruses from bats. The virus behind the current deadly pandemic is known as SARS-CoV-2 for SARS coronavirus-2.
A study recommended last week by American Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, argues that similarities between the bat-origin coronavirus known as SARS-Cov-2 and a coronavirus carried by pangolins, a type of anteater, are indications the disease was first spread by an animal sold at Chinese markets.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has maintained that the virus was born after a bat carrying the virus was consumed.
The Kremlin spokesperson said that “both sides are speaking without any proof. And, most likely, we just do not know enough to make any conclusions.”
Later Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said during a news conference, “we strongly believe that the Chinese Community Party did not report the outbreak of the new coronavirus in a timely fashion to the World Health Organization.”
Criticism has mounted in recent days that China failed to report the early origins of the virus and potentially withheld information. The latest coronavirus was reported to the WHO on December 31. The virus is believed to have started on November 17.
Mr. Pompeo said that even after Beijing alerted the United Nations-backed of the outbreak “it did not share all of the information it had. Instead it covered up how dangerous the disease is.”
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