Dr Anthony Fauci made his latest COVID flip after revealing he is now ‘open-minded’ claiming that the virus had leaked from a Chinese lab.
The White House’s COVID tsar, who has long asserted that COVID was likely transmitted from animals to the first human patient, has been hospitalized for a week. Fox News Interview with Bret Baier on Friday.
Fauci admits: ‘We have an open mind but it seems like a natural occurrence, but keep an open mind.’
Baier spoke to Fauci about a statement he made in April 2020, after being sent a link to a report made by Baier himself, showing Fauci dismissing the lab leak theory as being ‘a shiny object will disappear.’
The Fox News host said: “When you read an email from Kristian Andersen who says …” one has to look very closely to see some of the (potentially) designed features. “
‘And you say this is a shiny object and it will go away. Looks like you’re not open to it. ‘
Fauci appeared to try to deflect by flattering Baier, saying: ‘Bret, I know you’re a good person, I’ve known you for a long time.
‘If you get a bunch of emails when people are pondering and thinking hard and stop there, and don’t consider the review weeks of people who wrote the same email… in the peer-reviewed document already published, they explained why they thought it was a natural occurrence. ‘
Fox News host Bret Baier (left) tells Dr. Anthony Fauci (right) about disproving the theory that COVID-19 was created in a laboratory in Wuhan and about his relationship with that lab
Fauci laughed at the idea and said he has always kept an open mind about the origins of the virus despite his insistence in the past that COVID-19 was a natural occurrence.
Fauci admits he’s now open-minded about the origins of COVID when asked about an email in April 2020 that dismissed the lab leak theory as ‘a shiny object that will disappear’
Fauci emailed in response to this message from the former Director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins, asking for help to pour a splash of cold water on the lab leak theory.
In February 2020, Kristen Andersen – a virologist in California – speculated that COVID appeared to be genetically modified.
Two months later, in June, then-National Institutes of Health Director Dr Francis Collins emailed Fauci a link to a Fox report claiming ‘multiple sources’ believe COVID was leaked from Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Collins wrote: ‘Wondered if the NIH can do anything to help quell this very destructive conspiracy, with what appears to be developing.
‘I hope the Nature Medicine article on the genome sequence of SARS-CoV-2 will solve this problem. But probably not getting much visibility. What more can we do? Asking the National Academy of Sciences (of Sciences) to consider? ‘
Fauci also appeared to want to pour cold water on the claim, and replied: ‘I won’t do anything about this right now. It is a shiny object that will fade with time. ‘
Those emails were released by Republicans in June 2021, as concerns continued to grow that COVID had been leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Baier pointed out that he’s skeptical of Fauci’s ‘open mind’ because he appeared to ignore a 2020 email (pictured) sent to him from virology experts that COVID appeared to have elements which suggests it may have been engineered in the lab.
While saying that nothing can rule out the origin of COVID-19 as officials continue to investigate, Fauci went on to reiterate that the virus is most likely natural.
“We have an open mind, but it seems like a natural occurrence,” Fauci said.
An investigation by US security agencies was unable to determine whether COVID had leaked from a laboratory, or jumped from animals to humans.
The Chinese government thwarted the investigation.
And the proximity of the Wuhan Institute of Virology to the disease’s first epicenter also raises suspicions.
It is one of only four aids in the world to perform experiments on bat coronaviruses – including COVID-19.
Fauci also claims he has had an open mind since the start of the pandemic despite his history debunking the issue.
During the first month of the pandemic, Fauci said he didn’t believe the virus could come from a lab, but he changed his mind in May 2021 during the United Facts of America: A Festival of Fact-Check event. .
At the event, Fauci said he was open to the idea the virus could have originated in a laboratory and said a thorough investigation was needed in China.
However, the COVID tsar continued but confronted Senator Rand Paul at the time, who called out Fauci’s connections to the Wuhan lab when the health official stopped claiming.
Then in June 2021, a Freedom of Information Act request saw thousands of Fauci emails released since last spring – including many discussing COVID being man-made. out, some of which have since been edited.
In a January 31, 2020 email – more than two months before the World Health Organization identified COVID-19 as a pandemic – Fauci forwarded a copy of the Science journal article titled ‘ Mining the coronavirus genome for clues to the origin of the outbreak’ for two people.
US virologist Kristian Andersen and Sir Jeremy Farrar, who run a global health charity in the UK, were at the bottom of the email.
‘This just came out today. You may have seen it. If not, it is in the interest of the current discussion,’ Fauci wrote.
Andersen, who runs a viral genomics lab at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California, wrote back: ‘The problem is that our phylogenetic analyzes cannot answer whether the sequences are abnormal in individual roots or not, except that they are completely turned off.
‘Virus anomalous features make up only a small fraction of the genome (<0.1%), so one has to scrutinize all the sequences to see that some (likely) traits looks like designed.'
Andersen also noted that he and others ‘have both found that the genome does not match the expectations of evolution’ but added that ‘there are still further analyzes to be done, so the opinions are that could still change.’
Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Health, which has ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (pictured), was given $600,000 in 2014 to research whether the bat coronavirus could be transmitted to humans
Despite being informed, Fauci’s main opinion that he shares with Americans is that the virus is a natural occurrence and not one that can be traced back to a lab.
China has angrily denied that the virus behind COVID-19 had escaped its lab in the original epicenter, accusing the US of taking a ‘dangerous stance’ in calling for a full investigation into the virus. this possibility.
Fauci was initially the face of the Trump administration’s response to the pandemic, but relations between the head of the NIH and Trump have deteriorated as Trump grows increasingly impatient with his cautious approach Fauci for locking doors.
It’s no surprise that Fauci has once again become the face of the White House under the Biden administration.
Republicans have waged midterm campaigns promising to investigate Fauci. In Congress, they have repeatedly clashed with Fauci over the NIH funding a lab in the city where COVID-19 originated.
The close scrutiny comes as Fauci prepares to retire, telling Politico this week that he will leave his post before the end of Biden’s term after serving through seven administrations.
