By — Candice Norwood Candice Norwood By — Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin Leave a comment 0comments Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-we-dont-have-certainty-coronavirus-originated-in-chinese-lab-pompeo-says Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter WATCH: ‘We don’t have certainty’ coronavirus originated in Chinese lab, Pompeo says Politics May 6, 2020 12:37 PM EDT Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday that the United States does not have “certainty” that the novel coronavirus came from a laboratory in China, despite saying on Sunday that there was “enormous evidence.” “We don’t have certainty. And there is significant evidence that this can come from the laboratory. Those statements can both be true. … The American people will remain at risk because we don’t know,” Pompeo told reporters in a news conference Wednesday. He added: “There’s an easy way to find the answer to that: transparency and openness.” During the press conference Pompeo continued his criticism of China’s handling of the pandemic, saying they could have prevented hundreds of thousands of people from dying. For the first time, Pompeo also accused Beijing of destroying samples of the virus during the early stages of the outbreak. He called on China to share their data on the outbreak. We're not going anywhere. Stand up for truly independent, trusted news that you can count on! Donate now By — Candice Norwood Candice Norwood Candice Norwood is a former digital politics reporter for the PBS NewsHour. @cjnorwoodwrites By — Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin is PBS NewsHour’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Correspondent. He leads NewsHour’s daily foreign coverage, including multiple trips to Ukraine since the full-scale invasion, and has created weeklong series for the NewsHour from nearly a dozen countries. The PBS NewsHour series “Inside Putin’s Russia” won a 2017 Peabody Award and the National Press Club’s Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Correspondence. In 2020 Schifrin received the American Academy of Diplomacy’s Arthur Ross Media Award for Distinguished Reporting and Analysis of Foreign Affairs. He was a member of the NewsHour teams awarded a 2021 Peabody for coverage of COVID-19, and a 2023 duPont Columbia Award for coverage of Afghanistan and Ukraine. Prior to PBS NewsHour, Schifrin was Al Jazeera America's Middle East correspondent. He led the channel’s coverage of the 2014 war in Gaza; reported on the Syrian war from Syria's Turkish, Lebanese and Jordanian borders; and covered the annexation of Crimea. He won an Overseas Press Club award for his Gaza coverage and a National Headliners Award for his Ukraine coverage. From 2008-2012, Schifrin served as the ABC News correspondent in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2011 he was one of the first journalists to arrive in Abbottabad, Pakistan, after Osama bin Laden’s death and delivered one of the year’s biggest exclusives: the first video from inside bin Laden’s compound. His reporting helped ABC News win an Edward R. Murrow award for its bin Laden coverage. Schifrin is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a board member of the Overseas Press Club Foundation. He has a Bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and a Master of International Public Policy degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). @nickschifrin
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday that the United States does not have “certainty” that the novel coronavirus came from a laboratory in China, despite saying on Sunday that there was “enormous evidence.” “We don’t have certainty. And there is significant evidence that this can come from the laboratory. Those statements can both be true. … The American people will remain at risk because we don’t know,” Pompeo told reporters in a news conference Wednesday. He added: “There’s an easy way to find the answer to that: transparency and openness.” During the press conference Pompeo continued his criticism of China’s handling of the pandemic, saying they could have prevented hundreds of thousands of people from dying. For the first time, Pompeo also accused Beijing of destroying samples of the virus during the early stages of the outbreak. He called on China to share their data on the outbreak. We're not going anywhere. Stand up for truly independent, trusted news that you can count on! Donate now