Wuhan lab leak is the ‘most credible’ origin of coronavirus pandemic, top US official says amid ‘whistleblower’ claims
A GOVERNMENT official says the most "credible" theory around the origin of coronavirus is that it escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China.
Top aide to Matthew Pottinger says leaders in are "admitting" there is a chance theories suggesting started in a "wet market" are false.
reports how Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger told politicians from around the world that intelligence points to the likelihood of the virus leaking from China's biggest lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
"There is a growing body of evidence that the lab is likely the most credible source of the virus", Pottinger said in a statement.
He told leaders during the call that the incident could we have been a "leak or an accident".
"Even establishment figures in Beijing have openly dismissed the wet market story," he added.
In the UK, former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan-Smith, who was present at the meeting, said the comments helped to "stifen" the arguments surrounding the theory.
The news also comes amid reports US authorities are said to be talking to a "whistleblower" from the Wuhan institute.
Mr Duncan-Smith said: "I was told the US have an ex-scientist from the laboratory in America at the moment.
"That was what I heard a few weeks ago.
"I was led to believe this is how they have been able to stiffen up their position on how this outbreak originated."
There have long been theories that coronavirus was accidentally leaked from the Institute, something that has been claimed by President Trump several times.
In May last year the president claimed the coronavirus outbreak was the result of a "horrible mistake" in China after claiming he’d seen evidence the virus originated in a Wuhan lab.
The president added the Chinese communist regime then tried to cover up their blunder — but "couldn't put out the fire".
In December a journalist who bravelys deadly coronavirus outbreak was jailed for four years for "trouble making".
Zhang Zhan, 37, was found guilty of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" after a brief hearing in Shanghai, according to her legal team.
The Pudong New Area Peoples Court claimed she spread false information, gave interviews to foreign media, disrupted public order and maliciously manipulated the pandemic.
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Ms Zhang travelled to Wuhan to collect first hand accounts of life under lockdown and posted videos of crematoriums working at midnight that cast doubt on the official death toll.
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Damning leaked filed also to "protect" its image.
The explosive secret data, from China's own health chiefs, appeared to expose a catalogue of cover-ups and blunders which hid the true scale of the killer disease that has since killed more than 1.8 million people.