Ex-CDC Director: COVID-19 came from Wuhan lab – Fauci: Unlikely

Written by nypost.com on April 2, 2021. Posted in Current News

Dr Robert Redfield. Image: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

The former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believes the virus that causes COVID-19 escaped from a lab 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 killing 2.7 million people globally — did not evolve naturally.

“I’m of the point of view that I still think the most likely etiology of this pathology in Wuhan was from a laboratory — escaped,” said Redfield, who led the CDC during the height of the pandemic. “Other people don’t believe that. That’s fine. Science will eventually figure it out.”

Researchers believe the deadly and highly transmissible strain of coronavirus behind the global pandemic mutated from a virus that infects animals — namely, bats — to one that sickens humans.

But some believe the virus was somehow released from the Wuhan Institute of Virology — which is the only lab in China authorized to study the most dangerous known pathogens, according to Axios.

“It’s not unusual for respiratory pathogens that are being worked on in a laboratory to infect the laboratory worker. … That’s not implying any intentionality,” Redfield said. “It’s my opinion, right? But I am a virologist. I have spent my life in virology. I do not believe this somehow came from a bat to a human and at that moment in time, that 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 usually when a virus jumps from animals to humans, “it takes a while for it to figure out how to become more and more efficient in human-to-human transmission.”

One year into the pandemic, multiple variants of COVID-19 keep cropping up, including some that have shown to be more transmissible than others.

“I just don’t think this makes biological sense,” Redfield added.

SARS-CoV-2 was first detected in Wuhan in December 2019 — with many scientists believing it emerged at a wet market just under nine miles from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

But Redfield said he believes the bug was circulating as early as September or October of that year.

A probe by the World Health Organization concluded recently that it was “extremely unlikely” that the virus stemmed from a lab accident — and that it likely originated in animals before it spread to humans.

Later the same day, Yahoo News reported (in part):

Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top adviser to President Biden on the coronavirus pandemic, said he didn’t believe that the coronavirus originated in a Chinese laboratory for studying pathogens, appearing to contradict controversial remarks made earlier in the day by the former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield.

During the White House coronavirus task force press briefing, Fauci said the virus likely developed its transmissibility in late 2019, before epidemiologists became aware of its existence.

“This virus was actually circulating in China, likely in Wuhan, for a month or more before they were clinically recognized at the end of December 2019,” Fauci said. “If that were the case, the virus clearly could have adapted itself to a greater efficiency of transmissibility over that period of time.”

Fauci got his start as a government public health official just as the HIV/AIDS epidemic was taking hold in the United States. The origins of that disease were also fiercely debated.

“Dr. Redfield was mentioning that he was giving an opinion as to a possibility. But again, there are other alternatives that most people hold by,” Fauci added, making clear that he did not think highly of the laboratory hypothesis.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who succeeded Redfield as the director of the CDC, said she was looking forward to reviewing a forthcoming report from the World Health Organization on the origins of the coronavirus. She appeared less concerned with the etiology of the virus than with the proliferation of new variants, which could prolong the pandemic into the summer, even as millions of Americans are being inoculated daily.

Asked about Redfield’s comments later on Friday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki also said that the administration would look closely at the WHO report.

Indeed, Redfield’s incendiary assertion comes at a time when relations between China and the U.S. appear to be growing increasingly acrimonious. Top officials in the Biden administration have accused Beijing of being less than forthcoming in allowing investigators to understand the critical early stages of the outbreak, when the coronavirus could have perhaps been stopped from becoming a global pandemic.

Dr. Leana Wen, the former Baltimore health commissioner, criticized the former CDC chief on Twitter. “I hope Redfield explains his evidence, as this speculation runs the risk of fueling anti-Asian sentiment,” she wrote.

The WHO has made clear that its forthcoming report will not point to the Wuhan laboratory as a source of the virus. And while U.S. officials have downplayed the laboratory hypothesis, they have also signaled they are frustrated with China’s data sharing.

Most virologists believe that the virus is, in fact, zoonotic, meaning that it jumped from an animal species to humans. As continued deforestation has increased the contact between wildlife and humans, zoonotic diseases are expected to become more common.

See more here: nypost.com

and here: yahoo.com

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