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(CNN) – Intelligence shared among the Five Eyes nations indicates that it is “highly unlikely” that the coronavirus outbreak has spread as a result of a laboratory accident, but originated in a Chinese market, according to two Western officials who cited a intelligence assessment that appears to contradict the claims of President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
“We believe it is highly unlikely that it was an accident,” said a western diplomatic official with intelligence knowledge. “It is very likely that it occurred naturally and that the human infection was due to the natural interaction between humans and animals.” Countries in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing coalition are uniting around this assessment, the official said, and a second official, from a Five Eyes country, agreed with it. The United States has yet to release a formal evaluation.
A third source, also from a Five Eyes nation, told CNN that the level of certainty expressed by Pompeo and Trump is way ahead of where the current Five Eyes assessment is. This source acknowledged that the possibility still exists that the virus originated in a laboratory, but warned that there is still nothing that makes it a legitimate theory.
The source added that “clearly the market is where it exploded,” but it remains unclear how the virus hit the market.
But without greater cooperation and transparency from the Chinese, it is impossible to say with complete certainty, added the first official.
The Five Eyes alliance is made up of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and the countries share a wide range of intelligence in one of the strictest multilateral agreements in the world.
The third source said the United States may also not be sharing all of its intelligence. While the vast majority are shared among Five Eyes members, there are information groups that each country keeps for itself.
The assessment follows repeated claims by Trump and Pompeo that there is evidence that the virus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
“I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan,” Pompeo told ABC News on Sunday.
The US intelligence community released a statement on Thursday saying it is still working to “determine if the outbreak started through contact with infected animals or was the result of a laboratory accident in Wuhan.” The statement says that the Covid-19 virus was neither man-made nor genetically modified.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the State Department did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.
This story is breaking and will be updated.
This story was first published on CNN.com. “Intel shared between US allies. USA Indicates that the virus outbreak likely came from the market, not from a Chinese laboratory“
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