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HomeHealthCoronavirus most likely 'escaped' from Wuhan lab, US CDC's former chief says

Coronavirus most likely ‘escaped’ from Wuhan lab, US CDC’s former chief says

Robert Redfield, who led CDC last year, said he was not accusing China of purposefully releasing the virus but added that the virus’s strength suggests it was developed in a lab.

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Washington: A former top U.S. health official says he thinks the coronavirus originated in a lab in Wuhan, China, and began spreading as early as September of 2019.

Robert Redfield, who led the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, told CNN in a clip aired Friday that he thinks that scenario is more likely than any alternative, including that the virus erupted after transferring from animals to humans or in a live animal market.

The most likely origin “was from a laboratory — you know, escaped,” said Redfield, who served under the administration of former President Donald Trump. “Other people don’t believe that. That’s fine. Science will eventually figure it out.”

Redfield added that he was “not implying any intentionality,” or accusing China of purposefully releasing it, and that he guesses the virus “started transmitting somewhere in September, October, in Wuhan.”

Redfield said the virus’s strength, in how easily it spreads, suggests it was being developed in a lab. If it had come from animals, it would have likely taken more time to adapt to spreading between humans, he said.

“I do not believe this somehow came from a bat to a human — and, at that moment in time, the virus came to the human, became one of the most infectious viruses that we know in humanity for human-to-human transmission,” Redfield said. “It takes a while for it to figure out how to become more and more efficient in human-to-human transmission. I just don’t think this makes biological sense.”

He was asked whether he believes the lab was working to specifically make the virus more efficient. “Let’s just say, I have a coronavirus, and I’m working on it — most of us in the lab are trying to grow virus. We try to make it grow better and better and better and better, so we can do experiments and figure out about it. That’s the way I put it together.”

The office of the current CDC director, Rochelle Walensky, didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment on Friday morning.-Bloomberg


Also read: Covid-19 pandemic: France lax in containing cases, Palestine wants vaccines from Israel


 

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1 COMMENT

  1. The virus was most likely developed by Chinese Vuhan Lab on the order of Democratic party to be released at the right time to spread to make life miserable at the time of 2020 elections and democratic party can use it as an alibi to make massive Postal fraudulent voting.

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