US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo charged that China may have known of the new coronavirus as early as November, renewing accusations that Beijing has not been transparent.
"You'll recall that the first cases of this were known by the Chinese government maybe as early as November, but certainly by mid-December," Pompeo said in an interview on Thursday.
"They were slow to identify this for anyone in the world, including the World Health Organization," he told conservative radio host Larry O'Connor.
Pompeo said the United States still wanted more information from China including the original sample of the SARS-CoV-2 virus detected in the metropolis of Wuhan.
"This issue of transparency is important not only as a historical matter to understand what happened back in November and December and January, but it's important even today," Pompeo said.
"This is still impacting lots of lives here in the United States and, frankly, around the world."