NEW YORK, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 29: (EXCLUSIVE COVERAGE) Former Running Back for the New York Giants, ... [+]
On Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures, host Maria Bartiromo claimed that “we know” the coronavirus “originated in a Wuhan lab,” a theory that has not, to date, been proven.
Fox News journalist Greg Palkot in February reported that “a theory” promoted by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that “the virus could have escaped from the main virology lab in Wuhan” was, according to the World Health Organization, a “possible hypothesis” for transmission—but the most likely explanation was from an infected animal to an intermediary host. This has long been the leading explanation for the virus’ emergence, with an infected bat passing the virus to another animal that may have ended up in contact with humans at the notoriously messy Wuhan “wet” market.
In February The Who said they would no longer pursue the “Wuhan lab” theory after an international team of experts visited Wuhan searching for the origins of the virus. No evidence emerged supporting the theory that the virus was manufactured or otherwise escaped from a lab.
The “Wuhan lab” theory gained traction after being repeatedly implied or stated by former President Donald Trump, who famously called the coronavirus the “China virus,” without evidence supporting his allegations that the virus was man-made.
Peter Daszak, a British-American member of the WHO team in Wuhan, previously told USA Today that "in peoples' imaginations there might be this image of one person in a lab in China who drops a petri dish and that somehow leads to a massive outbreak. It's just not like that. Every year there are millions of people going in bat caves and hunting and eating wildlife. It happens every day.
"They are being exposed to bat viruses every day. It only takes one of these people to go to a city, cough and spread a virus."
