evidence: Nobel laureate Tasuku Honjo refuted stories circulating online originating outside Japan that he said the new coronavirus was "made in China." "I am greatly saddened that my name and that of Kyoto University have been used to spread false accusations and misinformation," said Honjo, 78, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2018, in a statement posted April 27 in English on the university's website. Stories alleging that Honjo "used to work at a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan for four years" and that he said "the new coronavirus was artificially made in China" have gone viral in several languages, including English and Hindi, mainly on social media.