Dr. Robert Redfield, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told CNN that he believes the coronavirus originally escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, China. But a team of experts from the World Health Organization, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and a number of virology experts said that the evidence to support such a statement simply does not exist.
“I do not believe that this somehow came of a bat for a human. And at that moment, the virus reached the human being, became one of the most infectious viruses we know in humanity for the transmission from human to human, “said Redfield to Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN during an interview recorded in January, to be transmitted in full on Sunday. “Usually, when a pathogen changes from zoonot to human, it takes time to figure out how to become more and more efficient.”
Redfield, a virologist who headed the CDC under President Trump, has repeatedly emphasized that this is just his opinion, not a proven fact. “I am allowed to have opinions now,” he said. According to Redfield, the extremely rapid transmission of the then new coronavirus, in his opinion, indicates that it was probably grown in a laboratory for exactly that purpose. “Most of us in a laboratory, when trying to grow a virus, we try to help make it better, and better, and better, and better, and better, and better, so that we can experiment and find out about it. The way how I put it, “he said of his theory.
Redfield, however, also said he believed the virus started spreading months earlier than previously thought – perhaps since September or October 2019, a period of time supported by recent research. This extra time that the virus may have been circulating undetected can help explain how it became “efficient” in transmission – without having “leaked” from a laboratory.
Dr. Anthony Fauci addressed Redfield’s comments in Friday’s COVID-19 response briefing and suggested that most public health officials disagree. He noted that if the virus had escaped from a laboratory, it would mean that “it essentially entered the external human population already well adapted to humans”.
“However, the alternative explanation that most public health individuals use is that this virus was actually circulating in China, probably in Wuhan, for a month or more before it was clinically recognized in late December 2019,” he said. Fauci.
“If that were the case, the virus clearly could have adapted to greater transmissibility efficiency in 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 maintain. “
Understanding when the coronavirus first appeared is an important piece of the epidemiological puzzle, which scientists around the world, including a WHO team, have been working to define. A study, recently published in the journal Science, concluded that “the period between mid-October and mid-November 2019” is “the plausible interval when the first case of SARS-CoV-2 emerged in Hubei province”.
“It is highly likely that SARS-CoV-2 was circulating in Hubei province at low levels in early November 2019 and possibly as early as October 2019, but not before,” says the study. But for weeks or months, its prevalence was low enough to go unnoticed. “When COVID-19 was first identified, the virus had established itself firmly in Wuhan.”
Kristian G. Andersen, director of infectious disease genomics, translational research institute at Scripps Research, told CBS News that “none of (Redfield’s) comments” on the laboratory’s theory is “supported by the available evidence”.
“Of course, not only was he the director of the most disastrous CDC in the history of the United States, where he totally failed in his sworn mission to keep the country safe, but, through his comments, he also shows a complete lack of evolutionary virology. basic, “Andersen said.
Andersen was the lead author of a study published in Nature Medicine last year, which found that the virus was a product of natural evolution. In addition, by analyzing data from the public genome sequence, the scientists “found no evidence that the virus was made in a laboratory or otherwise,” according to a Scripps press release.
“By comparing the available genome sequence data for known strains of coronavirus, we can firmly determine that SARS-CoV-2 originated through natural processes,” said Andersen at the time.
W. Ian Lipkin, co-author of the study with Andersen and director of the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health’s Infection and Immunity Center, said that while there is still a lot we don’t know about the virus, including exactly how long it has been circulating, there is no “no evidence” to suggest that it was created in a laboratory.
“The fact that we have not seen it before does not mean that it was created in a laboratory,” he said. Lipkin pointed to the coronavirus’s ability to replicate in other animals, such as mink outbreaks, and the emergence of highly transmissible variants around the world – “without any modification to a laboratory” – as evidence to the contrary.
“The changes that were exploited by the virus are not what we would have predicted,” he said, adding, “even if we wanted to design such a virus, we would not know how to do it.”
Lipkin called Redfield’s comments “counterproductive”, especially due to the increase in discrimination and violence against Asian Americans during the pandemic. “We should move away from pointing the finger,” he said.
Andersen and his colleagues concluded that the virus probably originated from one of two scenarios. The first is that “the virus evolved into its current pathogenic state through natural selection in a non-human host and then leapt to humans,” according to the press release. The second is that “a non-pathogenic version of the virus jumped from an animal host to humans and then evolved to its current pathogenic state in the human population”.
“We know that bats carry viruses very similar to SARS-CoV-2, so it is plausible that it came directly from bats. Like SARS, it is possible that it may have come from an intermediate host – which we have not identified,” explained Andersen. “There is nothing unusual about the fact that we have not found an intermediate host (if there is one) and anyone who says otherwise has simply not read the literature.”
Current director of the CDC, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, said in the briefing on Friday that the White House team is “looking forward” to a WHO report that “examines the origin of this pandemic and SARS-CoV-2 in humans” . But China was not close with information that can be fundamental for a complete understanding.
Andersen noted that “we don’t know the origins (reservoirs) of the majority viruses that infect humans, “including recent ones like Ebola,” and for those of us who have any idea, it could take decades “.
“We know that the first group of epidemiologically linked cases came from the Huanan market and we know that the virus was found in environmental samples – including animal cages – on the market,” he said. “Any ‘laboratory leak’ theory would have to account for this scenario – which simply cannot happen, without invoking a big conspiracy and being covered up by Chinese scientists and officials.”
His hard-hitting conclusion: “Redfield has no idea what he’s talking about – quite simply. It’s no surprise, given his disastrous management as director of the CDC.”