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Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield told CNN Friday that he believed the coronavirus escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China, a theory largely dismissed by the media over the past year and which was swiftly declared evidence-free by CNN itself.
"I'm allowed to have opinions now. I am of the point of view, I still think the most likely ideology of this pathogen in Wuhan was from a laboratory, escaped. Other people don't believe that. That's fine," Redfield told CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta. "Science will eventually figure it out. It's not unusual for respiratory pathogens that are being worked on in a laboratory to infect the laboratory worker."
Redfield, who noted he was not accusing China of purposefully releasing the deadly virus, also speculated COVID-19 began transmitting as early as September 2019.
Gupta noted Wuhan is known as a center for Chinese viral studies, as well as that the Wuhan Institute of Virology has been known to perform experiments on bat coronaviruses.
"It's my opinion, right? But I am a virologist," Redfield said. "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, the virus ... became one of the most infectious viruses that we know in humanity for human-to-human transmission."
Redfield added that viruses normally take longer to figure out how to become "more and more efficient" in transmission. A potential experimenter on a coronavirus, he explained, would work to make it grow better in order to do further experiments and learn more about it.
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The Twitter account for CNN's "New Day" framed Redfield's theory as lacking "clear evidence."
Gupta quoted the continued belief of the World Health Organization (WHO), which has come under criticism for its praise of China's dismal coronavirus response, that the coronavirus arose naturally. He also noted China's conspiracy theory that the virus might have "multiple" origins, including "U.S. military labs."
"That's unsubstantiated, but that's sort of the back-and-forth that's happening right now. We still don't know, a year later, exactly how this pandemic started," Gupta said.
Dr. Robert Redfield testifies at a hearing on Capitol Hill in September 2020. (Anna Moneymaker/New York Times, Pool via AP)
CNN's digital writeup of the interview called Redfield's remark "a controversial theory without evidence."
Media outlets battered Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., for offering the same theory as Redfield last year, with the Washington Post declaring it a "fringe" and "debunked" theory. However, the Washington Post editorial board recently said a separate, independent investigation was necessary to find the true origins of the virus and didn't dismiss the idea it came from a lab.
"China’s obduracy is not going away. The WHO, a membership organization, lacks the powers to pry open closed doors in China, and there is not another good alternative," the board wrote on March 6.
WHO investigator and virologist Marion Koopmans told NBC News on March 11 that some scientists working at a Wuhan lab studying the coronavirus became sick in the fall of 2019. China claimed the researchers did not test positive for the virus, but China's lack of transparency and initial cover-up of the virus have not inspired faith in its credibility among experts.
Chinese state media has repeatedly pushed the false narrative the virus did not arise solely from China, propping up theories such as frozen food packaging bringing it into the country.
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However, a WHO scientist said such so-called "cold-chain" transmission is "extremely rare," and Fox News contributor Dr. Marty Makary suggested it was "scientifically implausible."
The U.S. intelligence community continues to believe the virus originated in animals and was not leaked from a lab.
Fox News' Greg Palkot contributed to this report.