Redfield says he believes COVID-19 started to spread in Wuhan in September or October

Former Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Robert redfieldRobert Redfield Nighttime Health Care: More Johnson & Johnson Doses Coming Next Week | This is where the schools are back in session | WHO urges rich countries to donate 10 million doses of vaccine Lawmakers say manufacturers are in a better position to handle future pandemics Redfield tells CNN he believes the origin of the coronavirus pandemic is a laboratory in China PLUS said in an interview broadcast on Sunday that he believed COVID-19 started to spread in Wuhan in September or October 2019.

“If I had to guess that this virus started spreading somewhere in September, October in Wuhan,” Redfield told Sanjay Gupta for a CNN special report.

“It’s my own opinion,” he added. “This is just an opinion. I am allowed to have opinions now. “

The former CDC director went on to say that he believed COVID-19 had emerged from a lab in China, a theory one World Health Organization official called “extremely unlikely.”

“It is not uncommon for respiratory pathogens being worked on in a lab to infect a lab worker,” Redfield told CNN.

Redfield added that he didn’t think it was “biological logic” that the virus could spread so easily between humans if it was originally from an animal, saying: “I don’t think it comes from a bat to a human. “

“Science will eventually understand,” he added.

Part of Redfield’s interview, including his beliefs the virus came from a Chinese lab, aired Friday before the special report.

The government in Wuhan, China first reported cases of pneumonia of unknown cause on New Year’s Eve 2019 before officials identified the novel coronavirus.

The United States first confirmed a case of COVID-19 on January 20 in Washington state, and travel was banned from China 11 days later.