March 26, 2021 - "The former director of the CDC, Robert Redfield, says he believes COVID-19 'escaped' from [a] Wuhan lab in China and may have been circling as early as September 2019. Redfield made the admission in a CNN interview on Friday but stressed it was his 'opinion'. It is the first time Redfield, who was appointed CDC director by President Trump, has stated publicly that he believes COVID-19 originated in a lab....
"I still think the most likely etiology of this pathogen in Wuhan was from a laboratory ... escaped. Other people don't believe that, that's fine. Science will eventually figure it out,' he said. 'It's not unusual for respiratory pathogens that are being worked on in laboratories to infect the laboratory worker. That's not implying any intentionality. It's my opinion, right? But I am a virologist. I have spent my life in virology.'
"Researchers have said the global pandemic is believed to have started when COVID-19 jumped from a bat to a human or through an intermediary species at a wet market in Wuhan. Redfield, however, says that explanation doesn't make 'biological sense' to him.
"'I do not believe this somehow came from a bat to a human and at that moment in time ... became one of the most infectious viruses that we know in humanity for human-to-human transmission,' he said. 'Normally, when a pathogen goes from a zoonot to human, it takes a while for it to figure out how to become more and more efficient.' He believes it started in a lab that was already studying the virus, which would mean COVID-19 was being exposed to human cell cultures....
"The debate about the origins [of] COVID-19 has been ongoing for the past year and has resulted in rising tensions between the US and China. US investigators have been blocked from going to China in a bid to investigate the virus and its origins. China has long resisted pressure for a full investigation and has touted theories that the virus might not have originated in Wuhan. The World Health Organization has previously said the lab theory was 'extremely unlikely' but a team of its scientists that were finally allowed into Wuhan have still not been able to determine the origin of the virus more than a year into the pandemic."
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