The former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believes that the virus that causes COVID-19 has escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, according to a new interview.
Robert Redfield told CNN on Friday that it was his “opinion” that SARS-CoV-2 – the new coronavirus responsible for the deaths of 2.7 million people worldwide – did not evolve naturally.
“I still think the most likely etiology of this pathology in Wuhan was from a laboratory – it escaped,” said Redfield, who led the CDC during the height of the pandemic. “Other people don’t believe that. That’s nice. Science will eventually find out. “
The researchers believe that the deadly and highly transmissible strain of the coronavirus behind the global pandemic has mutated from a virus that infects animals – that is, bats – to one that sickens humans.
But some believe the virus was somehow released from the Wuhan Institute of Virology – which is the only laboratory in China authorized to study the most dangerous known pathogens, according to Axios.
“It is not uncommon for respiratory pathogens being worked on in a laboratory to infect the laboratory worker. … It does not imply any intentionality, ”said Redfield. “It is my opinion, right? But I am a virologist. I spent my life in virology.
“I do not believe that in any way it went from a bat to a human and, at that moment, that the virus reached the human, it became one of the most infectious viruses we know in humanity for the transmission from human to human.”
Redfield said that generally when a virus bounces from animals to humans, “it takes time to figure out how to become more and more efficient in person-to-person transmission.”
A year after the start of the pandemic, several variants of COVID-19 continue to emerge, including some that have been shown to be more transmissible than others.
“I just don’t think it makes biological sense,” added Redfield.
SARS-CoV-2 was first detected in Wuhan in December 2019 – with many scientists believing that it emerged in a wet market just under 14 kilometers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
But Redfield said he believed the bug was circulating as early as September or October of that year.
An investigation by the World Health Organization recently concluded that it was “extremely unlikely” that the virus was the result of a laboratory accident – and that it probably originated in animals before spreading to humans.