There are rumors the deadly coronavirus now sweeping across the world came from a microbiology lab in Wuhan, China.

But there is no evidence to support this at this time.

On Friday, the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology put out a directive titled: “Instructions on strengthening biosecurity management in microbiology labs that handle advanced viruses like the novel coronavirus.”

It turns out that in all of China there is only one such lab, the New York Post writes. “And this one is located in the Chinese city of Wuhan that just happens to be . . . the epicenter of the epidemic.”

TRENDING: Crowd Begins Chanting "Fill The Seat" at Trump Rally in North Carolina - President Trump Announces He Will Name Nominee this Week - A WOMAN

That’s right. China’s only Level 4 microbiology lab that is equipped to handle deadly coronaviruses, called the National Biosafety Laboratory, is part of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. What’s more, the People’s Liberation Army’s top expert in biological warfare, a Maj. Gen. Chen Wei, was dispatched to Wuhan at the end of January to help with the effort to contain the outbreak. According to the PLA Daily, Gen. Chen has been researching coronaviruses since the SARS outbreak of 2003, as well as Ebola and anthrax. This would not be her first trip to the Wuhan Institute of Virology either, since it is one of only two bioweapons research labs in all of China.

But that”s not all. The coronavirus has been connected back to a market in Wuhan that sells exotic meats, like bat and monkey and snakes. It turns out that some lab workers who do tests on animals later cash in by selling those creatures to local markets.

Instead of properly disposing of infected animals by cremation, as the law requires, they sell them on the side to make a little extra cash. Or, in some cases, a lot of extra cash. One Beijing researcher, now in jail, made a million dollars selling his monkeys and rats on the live animal market, where they eventually wound up in someone’s stomach.

But the Post story none of China’s excuses add up: “Snakes don’t carry coronaviruses and … bats aren’t sold at a seafood market.”