U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, despite repeated claims in the past that there was "enormous evidence" the novel coronavirus was created in a Chinese laboratory, has doubled down on his claim, according to a CNN report on May 6. 

Pompeo had earlier claimed that he had seen "evidence that this likely came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology," a research institution under the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the city of Wuhan in central China, in an interview on Fox Business on the same day. However, he added that he would be "happy to see evidence that disproves that."

According to CNN, Five Eyes, an alliance of the intelligence agencies of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the U.S. to share information, has poured cold water on Pompeo's claim, saying it is "highly unlikely" the virus originated in a lab.

Many U.S. experts have also cast doubt on the lab-release theory, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a lead member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. In an interview with National Geographic on May 4, Fauci said "a number of very qualified evolutionary biologists have said that everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that it evolved in nature and then jumped species."

A day later, Mark Milley, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and the president's principal military advisor, said at a Pentagon briefing that the weight of evidence indicated the coronavirus was "natural and not man-made" and was "probably not intentional."

Another CNN report also suggests scientists believe the virus has been circulating in people since late last year and spread extremely quickly after the first infection.

Genetics researcher Francois Balloux of the University College London Genetics Institute and his colleagues looked at samples from more than 7,600 patients taken at different times and from different places from a giant global database. Scientists around the world are using the database to share data. They said the samples indicate that the virus first started infecting people at the end of last year.

They also found genetic evidence supporting the school of thought that the virus was infecting people in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere weeks or even months before the first official cases were reported in January and February, he told CNN.

Copyedited by Sudeshna Sarkar

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