Redfield: Gain-of-Function Research Will Cause Next Pandemic, Which Will Be ‘Much’ Worse than COVID

On Monday’s broadcast of Hill.TV’s “Rising,” former CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said he believes that the next pandemic will come not from animal spillover, but “from gain-of-function research or intentional bioterrorism.” And that the next pandemic “will be much more brutal to the world than COVID was.”

Redfield stated, “I do believe the next pandemic, and we’re going to have another pandemic and I think it’s going to be the great pandemic, I consider COVID a minor pandemic, the great pandemic’s going to come. And normally, it would come from spillover…bird flu that learns how to transmit to humans and then go to human-to-human. But I think the species barriers are very real. But it’s much more probable that it will happen because of gain-of-function research in a laboratory and then escape and then we’re going to have a pandemic…which will be much more brutal to the world than COVID was.”

Later, he added, “I told you that the great pandemic is coming. I think it’s going to come, not from spillover, it’s going to come from gain-of-function research or intentional bioterrorism. It’s going to be a bird flu virus that is manipulated to be able to transmit human-to-human, very similar to what we saw with COVID.”

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