“I think it was done probably as part of a biodefense program that largely was trying to make a vaccine vector…but unfortunately that virus escaped…probably somewhere in the September [2019] timeframe.
“I’ll go on record. I don’t like to say it. My parents were scientists. It hurts me to say this, but I do believe that the most likely answer, when we get to the truth, is that this [COVID] pandemic was caused by science, not by a natural spillover event!”
— Former CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield