Robert Redfield, a former director of the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), has claimed that Covid-19 was artificially developed, and that the US played a “substantial” role in starting the pandemic.
Redfield, who led the agency under the administration of US President Donald Trump, made the claim in an interview that was released on November 14, but only drew media attention this week.
Speaking to author and podcaster Dana Parish, he suggested that the virus was “intentionally engineered as a part of a biodefense program.” “When you look at the accountability for China, their accountability is not in the lab work and the creation of the virus,” but in their failure to quickly report the incident to health authorities worldwide including the CDC, when they realized the virus was on the loose, he said.
However, the US “role was substantial,” he added. “They funded the research, both from NIH [National Institutes of Health], the State Department’s USAID and the Defense Department.”
According to the former CDC chief, the “scientific mastermind behind the research” was Dr. Ralph Baric, widely regarded as one of the world’s leading experts on coronaviruses.
Redfield suggested that the professor, who works at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was “very involved in this research.”
“I think he probably helped create some of the original viral line”, Redfield said, admitting he did not have any proof. “I think there is a real possibility that the virus’s birthplace was Chapel Hill.”
Redfield previously said the Covid-19 pandemic, which killed more than seven million people worldwide and caused a global economic downturn, most likely started with a lab leak in Wuhan, China, and suggested that the debate on the virus’s origins was “squashed.” He has also criticized the World Health Organization (WHO) for failing to hold Beijing accountable.
One of the prevailing theories of the origin of the Covid pandemic is that the virus was transmitted to humans from an animal, possibly a bat, at a food market. China has maintained that the virus is of natural origin, and has dismissed the laboratory leak theory as an attempt to smear the country for political reasons.