A United States senator is casting major doubt on the Chinese government’s official story on the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak, instead hinting that a biosafety laboratory working with the deadliest pathogens in the world could be the true source.

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas dismantled a claim from China’s communist regime Thursday that pinned the coronavirus outbreak on a market selling dead and live animals.

“China claimed — for almost two months — that coronavirus had originated in a Wuhan seafood market,” Cotton wrote on Twitter.

“That is not the case.”

In a video accompanying his post, Cotton explained that the Wuhan wet market (which Cotton incorrectly referred to as a seafood market) has been shown by experts to not be the source of the deadly contagion.

China claimed—for almost two months—that coronavirus had originated in a Wuhan seafood market. That is not the case. @TheLancet published a study demonstrating that of the original 40 cases, 14 of them had no contact with the seafood market, including Patient Zero. pic.twitter.com/PdgqgHjkGy — Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) January 30, 2020

Cotton referenced a Lancet study which showed that many of the first cases of the novel coronavirus, including patient zero, had no connection to the wet market — devastatingly undermining China’s claim.

“As one epidemiologist said: ‘That virus went into the seafood market before it came out of the seafood market.’ We still don’t know where it originated,” Cotton said.

“I would note that Wuhan also has China’s only bio-safety level four super laboratory that works with the world’s most deadly pathogens to include, yes, coronavirus.” – READ MORE