Former CDC Director Believes in ‘Early Spread’

Former CDC Director Believes in ‘Early Spread’
by Bill Rice at Brownstone Institute

Note: this article was originally published in June 2024.

In a recent interview with Chris Cuomo, former CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield made several eye-opening comments about the government’s Covid response and “vaccines.” However, what stood out to me (and has generated scant coverage) were Redfield’s views that the novel coronavirus was being transmitted in Wuhan between “August and October 2019.”

While I appreciate this former prominent public health official’s seeming corroboration of “early spread,” other Redfield comments on the subject struck me as incongruous or non-sensical.

I also note that Chris Cuomo didn’t follow-up on Redfield’s observation that virus spread might have begun four months before the official narrative, which shows that mainstream journalists still don’t understand the implications of this hypothesis – namely, “early spread” = a virus that is not “deadly”…because wide-spread early infections clearly didn’t cause a spike in all-cause deaths in these three or four months of early spread.

Summary

(Emphasis added by author).

“We now know that the transmission of Covid-19 probably began between August and October of 2019 …and clearly (Chinese officials) knew it. They were well-informed,” said Redfield.

Redfileld notes that “in the middle of September (2019),” three things happened at the Wuhan Institute of Virology that “raise high suspicion.”

1. Chinese officials “changed the leadership at the lab” from civilian to military control. It had previously been a “dual-use” lab, but now the military was in charge.
2. The Chinese “deleted sequence data on historical coronaviruses, which is highly irregular.” 
3. Chinese officials “put a contract in for a new ventilation system” at the WIV.

Redfield added that “based on intelligence that’s been classified, but some that has made it out to the lay press, there were reports of new infections in China by at least “late September.” 

Questions:

Why is/was this “intelligence” classified? 

If “intelligence” sources knew of reports of “new infections by at least late September,” why did Fauci, Collins et al go to so much trouble to push the Wuhan Wet Market natural origins theory? (The Wet Market or natural-origins theory holds that infection began in mid-December 2019 – at least three months after these classified intelligence reports.)

World Military Games Allowed no Spectators

Redfield also stated that “By October it (the virus and disease) was pretty wide-spread,” and noted that the World Military Games were held in Wuhan in October 2019. 

Redfield: “It’s very odd the Wuhan government didn’t allow any spectators to those games, which tells you something was going on at that time.”

My Comment: This is the first time I’ve heard local spectators were not allowed to attend these games, which, if true,  is indeed odd. 

As many “Covid contrarians” are aware, several media reports documented that athletes and non-athletes from several countries became sick while at these Games, including an unknown number of Americans.

Common sense suggests that members of the military and government intelligence community would have quickly taken note of these illnesses (as well as the fact no spectators were allowed). Once China finally reported a new virus to the WHO on December 31, 2019, these two facts should have been deemed significant.

Still, neither U.S. “intelligence” – or no person who was part of the sizable U.S. military delegation – apparently notified Fauci and his braintrust of possible, much earlier, virus spread in Wuhan.

To this day, I’ve seen no reports that any member of the U.S. Military Games’ delegation was interviewed or given Covid antibody tests as soon as these tests were available. 

Note: I know from my research that Chinese scientists and doctors were performing antibody tests in January 2020. I still don’t know when the first antibody tests were available in America. Whatever this date, serological assays were apparently not given to any of the dozens of Americans who might have become sick while in Wuhan in October…which is very odd.

Redfield: Wet Market Origins Narrative Was Always a ‘Ruse’

Redfield also told Cuomo he had at least two phone conversations with the person who holds the similar job as Redfield in China’s version of the CDC. According to Redfield, this person, George Gao, told Redfield on New Year’s Eve that 27 people had become sick with what seemed to be a new virus and they’d all visited the Wuhan Wet Market. 

Redfield said this didn’t make sense to him and he asked his counterpart to “look (for cases) outside of the wet market.” 

“Two or three days later” the two men spoke again and Mr. Gao told Redfield, “Bob, we have hundreds of cases and it has nothing to do with the wet market.”

Comment: This means by January 2nd or 3rd, China’s CDC director had told a key American public health official that the so-called Case Zero “had nothing to do with the wet market.”

This revelation makes one wonder why the group of scientists organized by Dr. Fauci insisted on promoting the natural origin theory, using the outbreak at the Wuhan Wet Market as the likely starting point of virus spread. 

It’s difficult to understand why they would do this when China’s CDC director told Robert Redfield on January 2nd or 3rd that the virus outbreak “had nothing to do” with that market. Presumably, virus spread started earlier.

Question: Did Redfield not tell Anthony Fauci and NIH director Francis Collins about this conversation? 

This, perhaps, explains why Redfield was not invited to participate in secret meetings where Fauci, Collins and the UK’s Jeremy Farrar concocted the “natural origins theory” and created a strategy to ridicule and cancel any person who theorized the virus originated from a lab leak.

In his interview with Cuomo, Redfield states several times that he thinks the Wet Market theory was a “ruse.”

If China’s CDC director quickly discounted the Wet Market Origins Theory and Redfield never believed it, why did this become the “settled science” for at least nine months? 

Nonsensical Parts of Redfield’s Comments

It’s clear from this interview (and others he’s given) that Redfield believes virus spread began in China between August and October 2019. Redfield also makes clear in the interview that the world’s new coronavirus was and is very contagious (unlike Sars-1 and MERS.) 

Indeed, Redfield said the gain-of-function research – which he thinks was a collaboration between American and Chinese scientists – was designed to make a virus more “transmissible” in human beings. (Redfield noted that experiments with “humanized mice” had proven coronaviruses could be made more contagious in a lab).

If the novel coronavirus was indeed much more contagious and human spread began in Wuhan sometime between August and October 2019, it would seem impossible this virus had not spread around the world by December 31, 2019.

It seems likely Redfield might not understand that super-contagious viruses would not stay in one city. That is, it should have occurred to Redfield that this virus very likely would have spread all across America by the last day of 2019 – which would be three to five months after the virus “escaped” a lab in a densely-packed Chinese city of 12 million people.

Redfield Convinces President Trump to Ban Travel from China

Redfield also said he had a meeting with President Trump that convinced Trump to ban all travel from China on January 31, 2020, which, to some, was a controversial or “racist” decision.

However – at least to skeptics like myself –  banning travel on January 31 to “slow or stop” spread of a virus that was already spreading in the summer or early fall of 2019 could not have made any difference. 

One might argue that, as of late January 2020, Redfield and others didn’t know the virus might have spread so far and fast. However, this would ignore the apparent “intelligence” about early cases in Wuhan in September and at the World Military Games in October. 

If nothing else, the apparent fact that public health officials never considered the possibility of “early spread” suggests professional incompetence or malfeasance.

In the interview, Redfield notes that the CDC had only identified approximately 20 confirmed cases in America when Trump announced his travel ban on citizens from China.

The reason the CDC had confirmed only 20 American cases by the end of January 2020 is explained by the fact the CDC’s PCR testing protocols stipulated that only citizens who had recently returned from China should be tested for Covid.

If no Americans were being tested for Covid, no cases of “community spread” could be identified in America.

At CDC Press Conference, Officials Claim no Evidence Exists of Early Spread in America

I also note that Redfield spoke at a CDC press conference held on May 29, 2020. This press conference was held to address the possibility that “early spread” occurred in America. Indeed, the agency used one of their own MMWR papers to address the topic. 

As stated at this press conference, authors of this (non-peer-reviewed) paper/study concluded there was “no evidence” of “community spread” in America prior to late January and early February.

As I’ve documented in many of my “early spread” stories, CDC officials ignored copious evidence of early spread in America. To me, the statement that the CDC could find no evidence of significant community spread in America before late-February 2020 is an intentionally false statement (aka “a lie.”).

Surely by late May 2020, CDC director Redfield knew all about the evidence of “early spread”  in China that he shared with Chris Cuomo. If he did, in fact, believe early spread began in Wuhan between August and October 2019, it is nonsensical to conclude such a contagious virus wouldn’t have infected many Americans (probably millions) by late February 2020.

It’s perhaps true that Redfield kept his “early spread” views private and that career employees at the CDC insisted on pushing the narrative that no significant virus “spread” had occurred in America by mid-February. 

If this is the case, Redfield was a public health “leader” who was too afraid to publicly oppose or question the (clearly bogus) authorized narrative. 

Why Is ‘Early Spread’ in America Such a Taboo Subject?

Today’s analysis prompts me to again ask why concealing evidence of early spread in America might have been so important to American public health officials.

Dr. Redfield should be commended for speaking with more candor today, but I wish he had made these points or shared these views four years ago. If he had, the origin narrative might have been starkly different.

Bonus Content in Reader Comments Section

Note: See Readers Comments for other eye-opening revelations shared by Dr. Redfield in his recent interview with Chris Cuomo.

I also included a brief summary of “early spread” evidence that was clearly ignored by CDC officials, including Dr. Redfield.

Republished from the author’s Substack

Former CDC Director Believes in ‘Early Spread’
by Bill Rice at Brownstone Institute – Daily Economics, Policy, Public Health, Society