COVID-19 originated in a lab in China, science will figure it out: Former CDC chief

The former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr Robert Redfield recently told CNN that he believes the coronavirus originally escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China. Even though a team of experts from the WHO, Dr Anthony Fauci, and a number of virology experts have said that the evidence to support such a claim just isn’t there, Redfield said that he doesn’t believe that COVID-19 came from a bat to a human. He said that if he was to guess, the virus started transmitting months earlier than once thought - perhaps somewhere in September, October in Wuhan. 

It is worth mentioning that there is no clear evidence to support the “lab leak” theory, although it has played an ongoing role in conspiracies and speculation, including statements from former US President Donald Trump. The World Health Organization has already called the theory “extremely unlikely”. However, Redfield, a virologist who led the CDC under the Trump administration, said that he thinks the virus originated inside a lab in China and “escaped,” not necessarily intentionally. 

While stressing several times that this just his opinion and not a proven fact, Redfield said that the extremely fast transmission of the then-novel coronavirus, in his view, indicates that it was likely grown in a lab. He said that he still thinks that the most likely aetiology of this pathogen in Wuhan was from a laboratory, escaped. He added that even though most people don’t believe it, science will eventually figure it out. 

Further, Redfield even said that it is not unusual for respiratory pathogens that are being worked on in a laboratory to infect the laboratory worker. His opinion is in line with other Trump administration officials such as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said recently that there was a “significant amount of evidence” that the virus came from a lab, without providing evidence. However, US infectious disease chief Dr Anthony Fauci said that most public health officials disagree with the Chinese lab theory. 

‘Alternative explanation’ 

While addressing Redfield’s comments, Fauci, during a White House briefing said that if the virus had escaped from the lab, that would mean that it essentially entered the outside human population already well-adapted to humans. He said that however, the alternative explanation which most public health individuals go by, is that this virus was actually circulating in China, likely in Wuhan, for a month or more before they were clinically recognised at the end of December 2019. 

"If that were the case, the virus clearly could have adapted itself to a greater efficiency of transmissibility over that period of time, up to and at the time it was recognized. So, Dr. Redfield was mentioning that he was giving an opinion as to a possibility, but again there are other alternatives — others that most people hold by,” Fauci said. 

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