US intelligence agrees virus not man-made

US intelligence officials agree with "the wide scientific consensus that the novel coronavirus was not man-made or genetically modified", the White House's top intelligence agency said Thursday.

But the American intelligence community "will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan", the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the clearinghouse for the array of US spy agencies led by Richard Grenell, said in a statement.

China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang has reiterated that the origin of the virus should be determined by scientists and experts, and cannot be politicized.

US President Donald Trump and his allies have called for an investigation into the origins of the virus in an escalating campaign to place blame for the pandemic on China, which critics say is a White House effort to deflect attention from Trump's missteps in responding to the health crisis as he faces a tough re-election campaign.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested, without citing evidence, that the virus may have escaped from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology.

In a March 17 paper published by the journal Nature Medicine, five scientists from the US, the UK and Australia said scientific evidence shows the virus was not purposefully manipulated and that it most likely came from an animal.

"Everything I have heard in my 15 years of work with people in that lab has been absolutely normal with what you'd expect from virology labs," said zoologist Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, responding to the rumor that the virus might have come from a lab in Wuhan.

EcoHealth is a New York City-based nonprofit nongovernmental organization that mainly supports programs on global health. Daszak specializes in the study of zoonoses (diseases that can jump from animals to humans), and his research once helped identify the origins of the SARS outbreak.

During an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS on Sunday, Daszak also clarified that most pandemics originate in animals, usually wildlife, often bats.

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"Nobody has the virus from bats that led to COVID-19," said Daszak. "We've not found it yet. We've found close relatives, but it's not the same virus. So, to my mind, it's not a possibility."

In his capacity as a researcher, consultant and public expert for media inquiries on viral outbreaks, Daszak expressed disapproval of the tendency to politicize pandemics.

"We started to see the conspiracy theories, the pointing of the finger at China and just this sort of politicization. ... It is very unfortunate because what we need right now is open communication with scientists across the world," he said.

On Friday, several states, including Iowa, Maine, North Dakota, Alabama and Wyoming, will ease their lockdowns.

Federal guidelines encouraging people to curtail nearly all public activities expired Thursday after Trump indicated he didn't intend to extend them.

"They'll be fading out, because now the governors are doing it," Trump said Wednesday, referring to the restrictions.

While more states will ease restrictions Friday, California is going in the opposite direction, by closing Orange County's beaches.

California Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday ordered the closure after a weekend in which tens of thousands in Southern California visited Newport Beach and other spots, with TV images showing many beachgoers disregarding social distancing guidelines.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, warned that premature action by states could lead to "a rebound to get us right back in the same boat that we were in a few weeks ago".

Most of the states that have reopened have mandatory regulations about wearing a face covering.

On Thursday, Vice-President Mike Pence wore a face mask as he toured a General Motors-Ventec ventilator production facility in Kokomo, Indiana, after he was criticized for not wearing one during a visit Tuesday to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, in violation of clinic policy.

Pence, who once served as governor of Indiana, leads the president's coronavirus task force. He previously has said he doesn't need to wear a protective covering because he is tested regularly for the coronavirus.

Xinhua contributed to this story.