No evidence of spreading coronavirus from lab: Fauci

Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert and a front-facing member of the White House coronavirus task force, said that there was no evidence that the new coronavirus was made in a Wuhan lab.

In an interview published in National Geographic on Monday (May 5), Fauci said that scientific evidence is "very, very strongly leaning toward" the conclusion that the virus originated in nature and jumped from animals to humans.

"If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what's out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated … Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species," he told National Geographic.

Conspiracy theorists have, without evidence, linked the outbreak to the Wuhan Virology Institute, which conducts high-level research on dangerous pathogens and is located about eight miles from the Wuhan wet market found to be the most likely starting point for the coronavirus outbreak.

Unfounded conspiracy theories claim the institute accidentally leaked the virus out into the public. The lab has denied any role in spreading the new coronavirus.

Still, the Trump administration has continued to tout the conspiracy theory in recent weeks.

Earlier this month, a set of State Department cables leaked to The Washington Post warned of safety issues at the Wuhan lab, thrusting rumors of a potential lab accident into the spotlight.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed there was "enormous evidence" that COVID-19 originated in a Chinese lab.

"China has a history of infecting the world and they have a history of running sub-standard laboratories," he told ABC News' Martha Raddatz during his appearance on "This Week." "These aren't the first times that we have had the world exposed to viruses as a result of failures from a Chinese lab."

Dhaka/AI