Sources believe coronavirus originated in Wuhan lab

There is high confidence that COVID-19 likely originated in a Wuhan laboratory.

It was prepared not as a bioweapon, but as part of China's effort to demonstrate that its efforts to identify and combat viruses are equal to or greater than the capabilities of the United States, multiple sources who have been briefed on the details of early actions by China's government and seen relevant materials told Fox News.

The sources believe the initial transmission of the virus was bat-to-human, and that "patient zero" worked at the laboratory, then went into the population in Wuhan.

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) emerged in late 2019 in China's Hubei province, and the virus has spread to 210 countries and territories since then.

To date, COVID-19 cases surpassed 2,000,000 globally, resulting in more than 510,000 recoveries and over 134,000 deaths.

On February 11, the WHO officially named the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) as COVID-19, and on March 11, declared it a pandemic.