No evidence virus came from China lab, says Aussie PM

SYDNEY • Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who has angered Beijing by calling for a global inquiry into the coronavirus outbreak, said yesterday he had no evidence to suggest the disease originated in a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he was confident the coronavirus may have originated in a Chinese virology lab, but declined to describe the evidence he said he had seen.

Mr Morrison said Australia had no information to support that theory, and that the confusion supported his push for an inquiry to understand how the outbreak started and spread so rapidly around the world.

"There's nothing we have that would indicate that (the lab) was the likely source, though you can't rule anything out in these environments," he said. "The most likely scenario that has been canvassed relates to wildlife wet markets, but that's a matter that would have to be thoroughly assessed."

The Wuhan Institute of Virology has rejected suggestions that the virus came from its laboratory.

Most scientists now say the virus originated in wildlife, with bats and pangolins identified as possible host species.

Beijing sees the inquiry call as part of US-led propaganda against China, while Mr Morrison has said the world needs to understand exactly what happened to prevent a repeat of an outbreak that has so far killed more than 230,000 people and shut down much of the global economy.

China's Ambassador to Australia Cheng Jingye said Chinese consumers could boycott Australian beef, wine, tourism and universities, comments which the Australian government has called "threats of economic coercion".

Some of Australia's top business leaders are nervous that economic ties with China will become irreparably damaged.

Billionaire Kerry Stokes used the front page of his West Australian newspaper to warn against poking the country's biggest customer in the eye, while iron ore magnate Andrew Forrest called for an inquiry to be delayed until after the US presidential election.

Australia's trade with China is worth A$235 billion (S$214 billion) annually, or a third of the country's exports.

In Geneva, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said yesterday it hoped that China would invite it to join its investigations into the animal origins of the coronavirus.

WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said the agency understood there were a number of investigations in China "to better understand the source of the outbreak", but that the world body "is not involved in the studies in China".

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE