BUT THEY'RE STILL ASIATIC:

Matthew Pottinger, Trump's deputy national security adviser, asked intelligence agencies in January to look into the idea of a Wuhan lab leak, The New York Times reported. But CIA officers didn't find any evidence. 

There's a reason for that, according to Jonna Mazet, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Davis, who has worked with and trained WIV researchers in the past.

"I know that we worked together to develop very stringent safety protocol, and it's highly unlikely this was a lab accident," she told Business Insider. Here are four reasons why.

Reason 1: The lab's samples don't match the new coronavirus

The WIV houses China's only Biosafety-level-4 laboratory, which is one of only a dozen in the world. Scientists study the most dangerous and infectious microbes known to humankind in these types of facilities. Some of the institute's researchers, including virologist Shi Zhengli, have collected, sampled, and studied coronaviruses that circulate Chinese bats. In 2013, Shi and her collaborators pinpointed the bat population most likely responsible for spreading SARS, in the Shitou Cave near Kunming.

After her team sequenced the COVID-19 virus, Shi told Scientific American that she quickly checked her laboratory's record from the past few years to check for accidents, especially during disposal. Then she cross-referenced the new coronavirus' genome with the genetic information of other bat coronaviruses her team had collected. They didn't match.

"That really took a load off my mind," Shi said told Scientific American, adding, "I had not slept a wink for days."

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