evidence: It also claims diplomats were concerned the lab's research on bat coronaviruses could risk a new Sars-like pandemic. The newspaper says the cables fuelled more recent discussions in the US government about whether the WIV or another lab in Wuhan could have been the source of the virus behind the current pandemic. [...] But a US study of the coronavirus genome published in March found no signs it had been engineered. "By comparing the available genome sequence data for known coronavirus strains, we can firmly determine that Sars-CoV-2 originated through natural processes," co-author Kristian Andersen, from Scripps Research in California, said at the time. [...] On 16 April, China's foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian addressed the matter at a news conference, telling journalists the World Health Organization's officials "have said multiple times there is no evidence the new coronavirus was created in a laboratory".