Coronavirus: ‘Enormous evidence’ it’s from Wuhan lab, says Mike Pompeo

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says there is now ‘enormous evidence’ that coronavirus came from a research lab in Wuhan.

Mike Pompeo has backed Scott Morrison’s call for an international inquiry into the origins of the virus. Picture: AFP

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says there is now “enormous evidence” that the coronavirus came from a research laboratory in Wuhan, China.

Mr Pompeo’s comments are the strongest US claim so far linking the virus to Chinese scientists and will add to pressure on China to explain the origins of the virus that has cut a swath of death and economic pain across the world.

“There is enormous evidence that (a Wuhan laboratory) is where this began,” he said.

“China has a history of infecting the world and they have a history of running substandard laboratories. These are not the first times we’ve had a world exposed to viruses as a result of failures in a Chinese lab. And so, while the intelligence community continues to do its work, they should continue to do that and verify so that we are certain, I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan.”

The US has not shared specific intelligence with Australia to back Mr Pompeo’s claims of “enormous evidence” that the virus came from a Wuhan lab.

It’s understood Australia’s security agencies are not discounting the theory that the virus may have accidentally escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which was researching coronaviruses from bats.

However, The Australian has been told the Trump administration’s strident push to link the pandemic to Chinese scientists without specific evidence is making it more difficult for Australia as it tries to build global support for a review of the origins of the virus.

Mr Pompeo invoked Australia as one of the countries that understood how poorly China had behaved in trying to conceal from the world the initial outbreak of the virus and its dangerous nature.

“China behaved like authoritarian regimes do. It attempted to conceal and hide and confuse. It employed the World Health Organisation as a tool to do the same … the Australians agree with that,” he said. “You hear the Europeans beginning to say the same thing. I think the whole world is united in understanding that China brought this virus to the world.”

The US and many countries in the West, including Australia, are increasing pressure on China to be more transparent about the origins of the coronavirus.

But Scott Morrison said on Friday he had no evidence the virus originated in a Wuhan laboratory, and it’s understood that has not changed. “What we have before us doesn’t suggest that (laboratory) is the likely source,” the Prime Minister said. “There’s nothing that would indicate that was the likely source. Now you can’t rule anything out in these environments.”

The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence said last week it was investigating whether the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the original source of the virus, a claim strongly denied by China.

Former foreign minister Julie Bishop said the US could convene a meeting of the UN Security Council to present any evidence it possessed that the virus originated in a lab in Wuhan, arguing this would be an “appropriate forum”.

“It would be fitting that there be a debate at the Security Council at which time the US could produce its evidence,” Ms Bishop said. She also said the first step the US should take would be to share its evidence with China, arguing this would give Beijing an opportunity to respond.

Former Defence deputy secretary Hugh White, a professor of strategic studies at ANU, said the US should first share any evidence with China. He warned the comments from Mr Pompeo “enormously complicate the quest to get an independent, thorough investigation into the origins of the pandemic because that can’t happen without China’s co-operation”.

Former Labor foreign minister Bob Carr said there was “only one way of Trump persuading the world, and that was to present the evidence that has persuaded him”.

“It will need to be more convincing than weapons of mass destruction,” Mr Carr said.

Additional reporting: Joe Kelly