Topline
In a Fox News interview broadcast Tuesday, former Centers for Disease Control Director Robert Redfield explained why he believes Covid-19 came from a Chinese lab, providing indirect support to Republicans promoting the so-called lab leak theory that growing numbers of Americans have come to believe, but which most scientists doubt.
Robert Redfield, pictured testifying at a September 2020 Senate hearing as CDC director, has ... [+]
Key Facts
Redfield, a virologist who served as President Trump’s CDC director, told Fox News he believes that Covid-19 spread too quickly between humans to have passed directly from an animal to a human in the way of SARS and MERS, two coronaviruses similar to Covid-19.
He thinks that the virus came from a bat but that manipulation by scientists helped it evolve to spread quickly among humans.
Redfield said the WHO “allowed China” to keep scientists from investigating the lab leak for their report, released with China in March, that found it “extremely unlikely” Covid-19 was caused by a lab leak.
A Forbes request to the CDC for comment from director Rochelle Walensky was not returned.
Crucial Quote
“I don't think it's plausible that this virus went from a bat to an animal—we still don't know that animal—and then went into humans and immediately had learned how to be human-to-human transmissible to the point of now causing one of the greatest pandemics we've had in the history of the world,” Redfield told Fox News.
Big Number
46%. That’s the share of Americans who believe that Covid-19 came from a lab, according to a June survey by Morning Consult—up from 29% in a March 2020 poll by the Pew Research Center. The partisan divide in responses doubled between the two polls. In March 2020, 37% of Republicans and those leaning Republican believed the theory, compared to 21% of Democrats and those leaning Democratic. By June 2021, 70% of Republicans said Covid-19 originated in a lab, while 32% of Democrats believed it.
Tangent
Comedian Jon Stewart, a favorite of progressives, received backlash from scientists for his comments Monday on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert that the virus “was more than likely caused by science.”
Further Reading
Former CDC director Redfield explains why he believes COVID-19 emerged from lab, WHO 'compromised' (Fox News)
Nearly Half Of Americans Believe Covid-19 Leaked From Chinese Lab, Poll Finds (Forbes)
Statement by President Joe Biden on the Investigation into the Origins of COVID-19 (The White House)
Theory That COVID Came From A Chinese Lab Takes On New Life In Wake Of WHO Report (NPR)
Trump claims to have evidence coronavirus started in Chinese lab but offers no details (The Guardian)
