homeowners this incredible tip is just for you. If you owe less than 331,007 930 here in New York a top virologist in China, defending her research in the lab in the city of Wu Han were COVID first emerged. The thinking that the virus the leak from that lab is getting attention and now the former CDC director Robert Redfield, sitting down for an exclusive interview with Dr. Marc Siegel spent two hours with him over the weekend, doctor. Good morning to you, what did you learn.
Well, a year and a half ago Dr Robert Redfield then CDC director had a hypothesis about the emerging virus. So, Dr. Anthony Fauci Redfield felt that the evidence pointed to a lab manipulation, and a leak and Fauci, didn't,
there's an alternative hypothesis that it went from a bat virus got into a laboratory where in the laboratory. It was taught educated, it evolved, so that it became a virus that could efficiently transmit human to human. And my professional opinion as a virologist is that's where that's the hypothesis that I support, you know, other individuals, and Tony Fauci, for example, would say that he prefers to support the default from nature. I think those are the two hypotheses.
Dr. Fauci has long believed the virus came from an animal intermediary, a theory that gained the most traction in the media and only recently he has conceded that there might be another explanation.
I think Donnie is holding on to this hypothesis tightly. Now, why, why would that be, sometimes scientists, when they get on there, they bite into a bone on a hypothesis, it's hard for them to move on, I guess if I'm disappointed about anything about the early scientific community is that there seem to be lack of openness to pursue both hypotheses.
Dr Redfield told me he had a higher level of security clearance than others on the task force working directly with the State Department in the National Security Council, giving him early knowledge of the virus's characteristics that others on the task force just didn't have, but much of what he reviewed was classified he says data like this needs to be shared wider to protect Americans.
I think the first critical error was we call this Rs. COVID two is not sorry. And by calling it SARS like we mounted a public health response that was mirrored off SARS. The problem is COVID Nothing like SARS. This virus is transmission is largely asymptomatic, so that strategy that we started in January in February, and finally figured out, as we got into March, that that wasn't the situation here that probably most of the transmissions of COVID was from asymptomatic people was flawed.
Dr Redfield claims it was a big mistake his CDC team wasn't allowed into the Walheim lab when the virus was first identified in January 2020 He says he should have pushed harder to get in right away, and the World Health Organization was to compromise to help.
I think they were highly compromised. Clearly, they were incapable of compelling China to adhere to the treaty agreements that they have on global health because they didn't do that. Clearly they allowed China to define the group of scientists that could come and investigate, that's not consistent with their role.
Dr Redfield told me he was concerned that manipulating viruses may be research that we are not quite prepared to be doing, and he warned against what he called going down a path of scientific arrogance, Bill,
data, and Dr. If you could just put a fine point on this for us. I just want to be very clear about this. When red fields around the CDC, right i mean they their eyes on this thing probably in December for sure in January and February. When did he start thinking about the virology lab and whoo.
Great question, Bill, he started thinking about it at the very beginning December in January. In January, and then he started accumulating evidence through State Department and the National Security Council that verified this suspicion he had, but he told me that the taskforce was not focused on that they were focused on what was going on here in the United States so his voice was drowned out bill.
I think one of the things that I learned from there just to really focus in on was when Dr Redfield said that we were, because we didn't know about the origins. We in America were treating this as if it were a SARS like virus which we had dealt with before, but that was the exact wrong thing to do if we had known that it was this other issue that the Coronavirus issue, we would have treated things very differently, and we're about to come up on the 600,000 Americans who have died. And then, think back to that and that seems to me like that's why you need to know how these things get started. That's why China should have cooperated in the first place.
That is so true, the structure of the virus. According to Dr Redfield led to that massive asymptomatic spread that caused the virus to rifle through our communities and how contagious, it was, was specifically due to that, and that's something that the origins play an exact role and you're absolutely right, this is,
this is a really another fine point here as we look back on this doc asymptomatic spread, I don't believe that we really understood that until mid March, because here in New York, we were living our lives in Madison Square Garden had, I think, 10 different events over a span of seven to nine days and the Wall Street Journal did a great analysis of the hundreds of 1000s of people that would cycle through Madison Square Garden for a hockey game or an NBA game or a college basketball game, and the possibility remains that a lot of these people could have been exposed to it, and that they go out in the community and have in the next 10 to 14 days they're spreading this, is that how we now understand sort of the mistake or the fault not understanding COVID In the very beginning, like that.
Completely Reifel very well described listen Redfield knew, but for almost anyone else, he had the high level clearance and he told me he wishes he had done a Manhattan Project of testing, not just the vaccine. Once he knew that the asymptomatic spread was so prominent. Okay, one last thing, but the lab Lake theory who subscribes to it based on the World Health Organization's report, three months ago in March. Does he think the leak was accidental or done with intent from everything I gleaned from that two hours he does not believe the leak was actually was was on purpose that it was accidental, but what was not accidental was perhaps what was going on in the lab in the first place to tweak the virus. Wow, a lot of revelations there, doctor. Good work. Excellent, well thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.
