On 3 May 2020, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed that there is "enormous evidence" the coronavirus outbreak originated in a Chinese laboratory. However, Pompeo later distanced himself from the claim, while virologists have stated that available data overwhelmingly suggest that there was no chance of scientific misconduct or negligence such that the virus emerged from a lab. In May 2020, George Gao, the director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said animal samples collected from the seafood market had tested negative for the virus, indicating that the market was the site of an early superspreading event, but it was not the site of the initial outbreak. The results of a WHO investigation yielded similar results, confirming what most scientists expected, that the location of the first contact with the virus was still unknown but unlikely to be the Huanan market.