A prominent Chinese official has promoted a conspiracy theory that the United States military could have brought the novel coronavirus to China -- and it did not originate in the city of Wuhan, as thought. Posting to his more than 300,000 followers on Twitter, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian republished a video of Robert Redfield, the director for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, addressing a US Congressional committee on March 11.
In the clip, Redfield said some influenza deaths in the US were later identified as cases of Covid-19, the disease caused by
the novel coronavirus. Redfield didn't say when those people had died or over what time period, but Zhao pointed to his remarks in support of a growing conspiracy theory that the coronavirus did not originate in Hubei province in central China. He did not offer any further evidence for the claim.