Dr. Anthony Fauci still believes Covid came about naturally — despite mounting circumstantial evidence of a lab accident.
The former White House doctor told DailyMail.com that while he keeps “an open mind” about the origins of the pandemic, the “data seems to weigh that it’s natural.”
His assessment flies in the face of the view of the FBI and other government agencies, which say the virus likely spilled from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), a premier coronavirus research facility at the epicenter of the original outbreak.
“I think it’s still an open question,” Dr. Fauci, 82, told DailyMail.com at a health conference in New York City last week.
‘You have to have an open mind and look at the data. I think the data that has evolved seems to weigh [Covid] be natural.
His comments came just days after it was revealed that one of China’s earliest suspected Covid patients was a WIV scientist funded by Dr. Fauci.
Dr. Anthony Fauci (speaking to DailyMail.com last week) still believes Covid came about naturally, despite mounting circumstantial evidence of a lab accident
Virologist Shi Zheng-li – nicknamed the ‘Bat Lady’ – is pictured in the lab. She hunted dozens of deadly Covid-like viruses in bat caves and studied them at the WIV
Dr. Fauci claimed that while “nothing is definitive” when it comes to how Covid originated, “there is no real data.” [that] there was a label leak.’
He added, “But there are data that are probably natural. But since you’re not sure, keep an open mind.’
Last month, U.S. intelligence reports revealed that one of the first suspected Covid patients was a WIV scientist who had received funding from the National Institutes for Health (NIH), which was headed by Dr. Fauci.
Ben Hu was one of three WIV employees to fall ill with symptoms consistent with Covid in November 2019 – a month before official cases began to emerge.
Dr. Hu’s work included studying how coronaviruses infect humans, which proponents of the lab leak theory argued was more circumstantial evidence of a research accident.
But Dr. Fauci was not convinced. When asked if the revelation made him doubt its natural origins, he said bluntly, “No.”
Dr. Fauci spoke to DailyMail.com at the 2023 Public Health Solutions gala in Tribeca, Manhattan.
Dr. Fauci has slowly relaxed his stance on the idea of a lab leak in recent years, after being a vocal critic at the start of the pandemic.
Leaked emails show that in early 2020 he commissioned a paper denouncing the theory as a conspiracy, then published the study weeks later at a press conference at the White House without disclosing his involvement.
He and other public health experts also publicly dismissed the lab leak – with Dr. Fauci in June 2021 said it was “a very, very, very, very distant possibility.”
It later emerged that, as head of the NIH, he was in charge of awarding taxpayer-funded grants for virus-promoting research at WIV years before the pandemic began.
A federal watchdog found that the NIH “was not effectively tracking” those experiments or checking whether pathogens were involved with pandemic risk.
Dr. Fauci was honored last week at an event in his hometown of NYC by the nonprofit organization Public Health Solutions (pictured)
The question of whether the global outbreak started with an overflow of wildlife sold at the market or leaked from the Wuhan lab just eight miles across the Yangtze River has sparked fierce debates about how to contain the next pandemic. prevent
But there is still no direct evidence of a natural or synthetic origin, splitting officials on the issue.
The Department of Energy, the FBI and several government commissions believe the virus leaked from a lab, pointing to a number of coincidences and circumstantial evidence.
The WIV – one of the top bat virus hubs in the world – is at the epicenter of the original Covid outbreak and suffered several security and infection control breaches before the pandemic.
The lab housed viruses thought to be Covid’s closest known relatives, and the research involved genetically engineering different strains to see how they would infect humans.
However, several other intelligence agencies claim that the virus was transmitted from animals to humans through a natural spillover.
Proponents of the natural origin point to an early cluster of cases at an animal slaughter market just eight miles from the WIV, where animals known to harbor Covid, such as raccoon dogs, hedgehogs and rats, were kept in appalling conditions.