Covid-19 may have originated in North Carolina, not China, says former U.S. health official

Former U.S. Centers for Disease Control Director Robert Redfield has sensationally claimed Covid-19 may have been born in a laboratory in North Carolina – not Wuhan, China.

Former U.S. Centers for Disease Control Director Robert Redfield

In an unlikely turnaround, Redfield who had previously backed the Wuhan “lab leak” theory, says the disease may have origins in the Tar Heel State as part of a secret biodefense program. He now argues China did not necessarily create the virus and did the best they could once “they realized they had a problem”.

He calls the U.S.’ role in the development of the virus “substantial” and claims the American government holds responsibility for funding research into the NIH, USAID, and the Department of Defense.

Speaking on the Dana Parish Podcast, Redfield then calls out researcher Dr. Ralph Baric from the University of North Carolina, whom he calls “the scientific mastermind” behind all of this. “I think he probably helped create some of the original viral lines, but I can’t prove that. But he was very involved.”

When pressed on whether the virus was “actually developed here” and the Chinese may have been wrongfully accused of developing the virus, Redfield doubles down. “Well, I don’t know if they were framed, but I think there is a real possibility that the virus’s birthplace was Chapel Hill,” Redfield said, naming the hometown of the University of North Carolina.

The virus is believed to have originated in bats, but debate is currently raging over whether it leaked from the Wuhan lab — and whether it was modified by Chinese scientists to become contagious beforehand.

Redfield, who was CDC director in the first Trump administration, has in the past claimed that White House Covid tsar Anthony Fauci was “holding on tightly” to the theory the virus evolved naturally, likening Fauci’s position to that of a “dog with a bone.”

And in 2021, he slammed the “highly compromised” World Health Organization for not cracking down on China at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and for letting its communist government dictate the terms of the WHO probe into the origins of Covid.

Redfield, who doesn’t believe the virus was intentionally leaked by China, said Covid-19’s ability to spread rapidly from human to human was unlike other coronaviruses such as SARS.
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Sources: Associated Press, Knewz