British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Sunday joined calls for further investigation into claims that COVID-19 originally leaked from a Chinese lab but said at the moment he doesn’t believe that’s what sparked the global pandemic.
Johnson, speaking at the end of the Group of Seven summit in southwest England, said the world needs to “keep an open mind.” The hypothesis that COVID-19 leaked accidentally from the Wuhan Institute of Virology is drawing increased interest globally and is now under a new U.S. investigation ordered by President Joe Biden. Biden said he and the U.S. intelligence community have yet to reach a determination on the claim.
“At the moment, the advice that we have had is that it doesn’t look as though this particular disease of zoonotic origin came from a lab,” Johnson said.
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