Donald Trump addressed theories that coronavirus was spread to humans via a bat in the Chinese city of Wuhan (Picture: AP)

Donald Trump has openly speculated about whether coronavirus jumped to humans from a bat at what he branded Wuhan’s ‘wet zone.’ Asked about repeated claims Covid-19 had escaped from a virology lab in the Chinese city, before spreading at a slaughter market, President Trump said: ‘We are looking at it. A lot of people are looking at it. It seems to make sense.

‘They talk about a certain kind of bat, but that bat wasn’t in that area. If you can believe this, that’s what they’re down to now is bats. But that bat is not in that area. That bat wasn’t sold at that wet zone. It wasn’t sold there. That bat is 40 miles away. So, a lot of strange things are happening but there is a lot of investigation going on and we are going to find out. All I can say is that wherever it came from, it came from China.’



Earlier this week, Trump was asked by Fox News White House correspondent John Roberts over US intelligence claims that the virus was accidentally leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) by a female staff member, who then went to Wuhan’s ‘wet market,’ where it began to spread.

That theory alleges that the virus was inadvertently released from experiments being performed at the Wuhan Institute, but discounts a theory that Covid-19 was deliberately created by researchers as a potential biological weapon. Scientists think an intermediary animal was infected with coronavirus before it jumped into a human host, with ongoing research suggesting that intermediary may have been a pangolin – a scaly, ant-eater type creature.


Trump on origins of the coronavirus: “They talk about a certain kind of but that bat is not in that area. If you can believe it, that is what they are down to, bats.” pic.twitter.com/QCiBz5UOLn — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 17, 2020

It is also unclear whether coronavirus spread to humans after an animal carrying the virus was eaten by a customer at the market, or whether infected droplets may have been passed onto another animal that was later killed for food.

Friday’s press conference also saw White House immunologist Dr Anthony Fauci shoot down claims Covid-19 was man-made, while confirming that the killer disease did likely come from bats.

Dr Fauci cited a large-scale study into genetic sequencing of Covid-19, adding: ‘The mutations it took to get where it is now is totally consistent with a jump from an animal to a human.’

China has denied claims the virus came from the Wuhan lab, which received more than $3million of US funding in 2015. In 2018, US state department officials sent cables back to Washington DC expressing fears over shoddy safety procedures in place during coronavirus experiments being performed on bats there.