Former China CDC Chief Claims ‘No Evidence’ for COVID’s Animal Origins

Dr. George Gao, the former head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), stated on Friday that there is still no concrete evidence pointing to a specific animal as the source of the COVID-causing virus, Reuters reports.

Gao, who led the agency when the virus initially emerged in Wuhan, China in late 2019, made the comments during a London summit focused on pandemic preparedness.

“Even now, people think some animals are the host or reservoir,” Gao said, emphasizing, “Cut a long story short, there is no evidence which animals (were) where the virus comes (from).”

The health official’s comments come as the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to be a matter of debate and speculation.

Critics argue that China has obstructed efforts to investigate the source of the virus, but the Chinese government has maintained that it has always supported all efforts to uncover the origin.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) has made it clear that all hypotheses surrounding the origins of COVID remain under consideration, including the possibility of a link to a high-security laboratory in Wuhan that specializes in the study of dangerous pathogens, Reuters notes.

The former director of the U.S. CDC, Dr. Robert Redfield, testified before the congressional Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic that he believes the science indicates COVID infections were likely the result of a lab leak in Wuhan.

“Based on my initial analysis of the data, I came to believe—and still believe today—that it
indicates COVID-19 infections more likely were the result of an accidental lab leak
than the result of a natural spillover event,” Dr. Redfield said.

“This conclusion is based primarily on the biology of the virus itself, including its rapid high infectivity for human to human transmission which would then predict rapid evolution of new variants, as well as a number of other important factors to include the unusual actions in and around Wuhan in the fall of 2019.”

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