Growing evidence that Covid originated in lab, says former FDA chief

Evidence that Covid-19 originally leaked from a Wuhan virology lab is growing, Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Monday.

Evidence that the coronavirus originally leaked from a Wuhan, China, virology lab is growing, Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Monday, citing reports that three researchers from the lab sought hospital care with a Covid-like illness in November 2019.

“People a year ago who said this probably came from nature, it’s really unlikely it came from a lab, maybe a year ago that kind of a statement made a lot of sense because that was the more likely scenario,” Gottlieb, a former head of the Food and Drug Administration, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “But we haven’t found the true source of this virus.”

Scientists still haven’t discovered definitive proof that the virus came from an animal, he said. With other coronaviruses, SARS and MERS, researchers were able to identify the animal those diseases emerged from at this point in those outbreaks.