Trump Suggests CCP Virus Spread From Wuhan Lab Probably Due to Incompetence

Trump Suggests CCP Virus Spread From Wuhan Lab Probably Due to Incompetence
An aerial view shows the P4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on April 17, 2020. Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images
Allen Zhong
Updated:

President Donald Trump implied on Thursday that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus spread from the Wuhan P4 laboratory due to incompetence.

“Something happened,” he responded when asked about the connection between the CCP virus and the Wuhan lab during an Oval Office meeting with Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Texas).

“It’s either they made a terrible mistake, probably it was incompetence, somebody was stupid, and they didn’t do the job that they should’ve done.”

He also reaffirmed that the virus originated from China.

“Whether people like to say it or not, everybody knows that,” he said.

In an April 30 statement via the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) said that the CCP virus originated from Wuhan, China, and was not manmade or genetically modified.

It’s unclear how the office came to this conclusion.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), aligned with the Intelligence Community about the nature of the virus.

“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,” he said during an interview with National Geographic. “Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species.”

The IC has also committed to investigating whether the virus was leaked from the Wuhan lab.

“The IC will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan,” they said.

Incompetence and Lack of Transparency

The CCP virus, also commonly known as the novel coronavirus, has been linked to at least 268,877 deaths globally and infected over 3.8 million people as of Thursday afternoon, according to official government data collated by Johns Hopkins University.

The numbers are considered inaccurate by many because of a lag in data collection by governments as well as significant underreporting of known cases and deaths by the regime ruling mainland China.

There are over 1.2 million confirmed cases and 75,447 deaths in the United States, the data shows.

Though it remains to be seen whether the virus came from the Wuhan lab, a lack of transparency there has caused serious concerns.

State Secretary Michael Pompeo warned on Thursday about the risks that virology labs run by the Chinese regime have taken in the past.

“This is not the first time there has been a risk. The SARS virus when it broke out, there were leaks from their labs,” he said.

He also criticized the CCP for not sharing data about the outbreak with the free world.

“We still don’t have samples of this virus,” Pompeo said.
Allen Zhong
Allen Zhong
senior writer
Allen Zhong is a long-time writer and reporter for The Epoch Times. He joined the Epoch Media Group in 2012. His main focus is on U.S. politics. Send him your story ideas: [email protected]
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