Tuesday during an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) argued the COVID-19 virus could be a product of the lab but, at the same time, “naturally occurring.”
Over the past few weeks, critics have been dismissive of claims coronavirus could be a product of a lab in China. However, Cotton points out there is a lack of evidence it originated from the wet markets, as many have claimed.
“All the evidence at this point points to two labs in Wuhan,” Cotton said. “No evidence — and I mean no evidence at all points to the seafood market in Wuhan. Now, all the evidence pointing to those labs, the fact that they used bats, that they research coronaviruses, that they have a history of bad safety practices, that the original person infected with the virus had no contact with the food market, all of that is circumstantial evidence to be sure. But in intelligence questions, we rarely get direct or conclusive evidence. So I agree that all of the evidence, albeit circumstantial, points directly at those labs. And if the Chinese Communist Party has evidence to the contrary, they need to bring it forward to the world.”
According to Cotton, just because the virus emerged from the lab does not mean it was “genetically modified or engineered.”
“Whether the virus was genetically modified or engineered is a highly technical, scientific question. And the weight of scientific opinion right now says that, no, this was a naturally occurring virus. But a naturally occurring virus can, of course, be present in a laboratory where it’s being studied. That is a different question from saying that laboratory might have had bad safety practices, and there could have been an accidental breach, which was the original source of what has become this terrible pandemic.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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