Report: Intel shared among U.S. allies contradicts claim coronavirus spread because of lab accident

Intelligence shared between the U.S., United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand indicates that it's "highly unlikely" the COVID-19 coronavirus originated in a Wuhan, China, laboratory, two officials told CNN on Monday, citing an intelligence assessment.The countries make up the Five Eyes alliance, and two officials said the nations are uniting around the assessment. One Western diplomat told CNN the intelligence points to the coronavirus outbreak coming from a market in Wuhan, and it's "highly likely it was naturally occurring and that the human infection was from natural human and animal interaction."Another official said "clearly the market is where it exploded from," but it's not clear how the virus got there. This official noted that each Five Eyes country does keep some intelligence to themselves, and the U.S. might not be sharing everything it knows about the coronavirus.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has claimed there is "enormous evidence" the coronavirus spread as a result of a lab accident, backing up earlier comments made by President Trump. Officials who have examined classified U.S. intelligence reports told The New York Times that several theories are being investigated, and there is no evidence the virus was man-made or genetically modified.More stories from theweek.com Adele thanks essential workers, shows off weight loss in return to Instagram Member of Trump's reopening council warns we'll 'have body bags of businesses' if they remain closed Jared Kushner put a dozen young volunteers in charge of finding PPE. It went poorly, 1 reports.

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