Former CDC director challenges Fauci on COVID-19 origin

Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield on Monday challenged National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci's view that the coronavirus originated naturally.

Fauci has eschewed the notion that the coronavirus originated in a Chinese lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, insisting COVID-19 likely originated in nature. The NIAID director has long been at odds which his right-leaning critics, especially Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, over this position.

Redfield, however, gave more credence to the Wuhan lab origin in a Fox News interview, saying the virus had to be educated in the laboratory to gain the efficient human-to-human transmission capability that it has.”

“So it’s really exceptional that this virus is one of the most infectious viruses for man. And I still argue that’s because it was educated how to infect human tissue,” he continued.

While health officials and the mainstream media largely derided the Wuhan theory as misinformation, evidence has mounted to lend greater credibility to the idea. The FBI launched an inquiry into the lab's work on coronaviruses while Congress ultimately lent the theory enough weight to ban further federal funding specifically to the WIV and to labs in adversary nations.

Redfield expressed disappoint that American health institutions were so stalwartly opposed to examining the WIV as an origin site for COVID-19. “I’ve been very disappointed in the scientific community led by [National Institutes of Health] that has really dug their heels in from the beginning to try to minimize any of us that have a different hypothesis,” he said, per the Epoch Times.