China has criticized as "fabricated lies" a U.S. Republican Party report claiming that the coronavirus leaked from a Chinese lab. In a statement, the Chinese Foreign Ministry reiterated the findings of the joint World Health Organization (WHO) –China expert team that visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology in January, concluding in its report that a "laboratory leakage is highly unlikely." 

China has also demanded that the U.S. fully explain a rash of unknown respiratory disease cases in the state of Virginia in 2019 and allow the WHO to investigate Fort Detrick and more than 200 biological laboratories overseas.