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White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien said Tuesday that the coronavirus pandemic may have emerged in a “filthy” and “horrific” wet market or in a Wuhan virology lab.
“If you’re China, neither one’s a good answer,” O’Brien told reporters on the White House driveway.
The official indicated that the US government still isn’t sure how the outbreak began. Last week, President Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper called on China to be transparent to vet different theories, including that the virus was accidentally released by the lab.
“There’s certainly the potential it came from the laboratory,” O’Brien said. “There’s speculation that it came from the wet market, and neither one is a good answer for the Chinese — right, it either came from a horrific wet market where animals are tortured and exotic animals are consumed on site, and the conditions are filthy. When you watch the videos on it, it’s something to really behold and something terrible. Or it came out of a lab where there was improper safety protocols in place. So neither one’s a good answer for China.”
O’Brien said there currently is “circumstantial” evidence to support COVID-19 origin theories.
“I think we know it came from Wuhan, and I think there’s circumstantial evidence that it could have come from the lab or the wet market, but again, if you’re China, neither one’s a good answer,” he said. “We’ve had five plagues from China — in the last 20 years.”
In an interview with The Post last week, Trump said he believes the Chinese government did not purposely release the virus, but that he faults China for not controlling its spread.
National security adviser Robert O’BrienMandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images“Bad things happened, let’s face it, bad things happened. They didn’t do it on purpose. But it got out,” Trump said. He clarified that he meant the virus “got out” of Wuhan, not the lab specifically.
“Well, it got out of that area, and it shouldn’t have. It shouldn’t have been allowed to have gotten out because it got out and went all over the world. So that shouldn’t have taken place, and [China] should have never allowed it to happen,” Trump told The Post.
The virus has sickened nearly 1.4 million Americans, killed more than 80,000 and left more than 30 million jobless.
