The Five Eyes intelligence agencies of the US, the UK, New Zealand, and Australia have allegedly accused China of scrapping evidence of the coronavirus outbreak,

The Five Eyes intelligence agencies of the US, the UK, New Zealand, and Australia have allegedly accused China of scrapping evidence of the coronavirus outbreak, in what they claim amounts to an “assault on international democracy”.

In a 15-page research dossier,obtained by daily telegraph, the Five Eyes painted an alleged picture of “how the Chinese government deliberately covered up the coronavirus by […] destroying evidence from the Wuhan laboratory and refusing to provide live virus samples to international scientists working on a vaccine”, according to the Australian newspaper.

The dossier also claimed that Chinese authorities denied COVID19 could be spread between humans until 20 January, “despite evidence of human-human transmission from early December”. The Five Eyes also blame the World Health Organisation (WHO) for supporting Beijing’s stance.

The accusations come after Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters on Friday that Canberra “has nothing” in terms of evidence to support speculations that the covid19 outbreak came from a Chinese lab late last year.

Morrison added that although “we know it [the outbreak] started” in China’s Wuhan, and “the most likely scenario that has been canvassed relates to wildlife wet markets”, it is “a matter that would have to be thoroughly assessed”.

Trump Says He ‘Hasn’t Seen’ Intel Statement on COVID-19 Origin

The remarks followed US President Donald Trump saying during Thursday’s press briefing that he “hasn’t seen the statement" by the office of Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell which, in particular, read that “the Intelligence Community […] concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the covid19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified”.

The office was previously echoed by chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, who stated that the country’s intelligence community agreed that the coronavirus was a natural pandemic and not linked to the laboratory facility in Wuhan, adding, however, that “we do not know for sure".

This came after WHO epidemiologist Maria van Kerkhove said earlier in April that China's upward revision of its coronavirus death toll is "an attempt to leave no case undocumented".

Health authorities in Wuhan, the very epicentre of the pandemic, revised the local death toll upward by 50%, to 3,869 from the earlier reported 1,290, thus acknowledging that they had not counted many fatalities, including people who died at home or in detention centres.

In a separate development in April, Trump withdrew the new funding of WHO after accusing the body of conspiring with China to conceal the real state of affairs about the coronavirus.

China has vehemently dismissed allegations that it reacted too slowly, or tried to cover up the initial outbreak of the coronavirus on its soil. In early April, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters that “the comments made by those US politicians are just shameless and morally repulsive; they should abandon such politicising of public health issues".