Sen. Marco Rubio, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said there’s not yet enough evidence to back the claim that the coronavirus outbreak resulted from a Chinese laboratory accident.
“I’m not ruling out that it could be a lab accident, and some experts have not ruled it out either,” the Florida Republican told Axios on HBO in an interview that aired Monday. “Though I can’t prove it, and no one can because we don’t have enough information to disprove it or prove it.”
Rubio’s comments conveyed less certainty than those of Trump administration officials.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week he had seen “enormous evidence” indicating the COVID-19 outbreak originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. He also noted he did not believe the virus was “man-made.” In April, President Trump said he has a “high degree of confidence” that the outbreak began in a lab accident in China.
Rubio acknowledged that he is not privy to all the information the president is given.
U.S. allies have been leery of the Trump administration’s claims that the outbreak originated in a lab instead of a wet market.
“There’s nothing that we have that would indicate that was the likely source,” Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said of the coronavirus being linked to a Wuhan lab.
Regardless of the origin of the virus, the Chinese Communist Party has been accused of covering up the extent of its outbreak, allowing it to spread across the globe.
