Former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci on Monday dismissed allegations that he had been involved in downplaying theories that the coronavirus leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, China.
During the hearing, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) asked Fauci if he agreed that “there was a push to downplay the lab leak theory.”
“Really?” an astonished-sounding Jordan said in response to Fauci’s answer.
“Really,” Fauci added.
“Wow,” Jordan added. “I think most of the country would find that amazing.”
As Breitbart News has previously reported, Fauci has dismissed theories that the coronavirus leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, China.
In an interview with National Geographic in May 2020, Fauci pointed to “the evolution of the virus in bats and what’s out there now” as being scientific evidence that the coronavirus “could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated.”
National Geographic added that Fauci did not “entertain an alternate theory — that someone found the coronavirus in the wild, brought it to a lab, and then it accidentally escaped.”
While speaking on a New York Times podcast in June 2021, Fauci downplayed theories that the coronavirus had originated from a lab in Wuhan. Fauci described these theories as being a “very, very, very, very, remote possibility.
A month earlier, the Wall Street Journal released an undisclosed U.S. intelligence report that claimed that three researchers working at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) had been hospitalized in November 2019 after experiencing coronavirus-like symptoms:
The State Department fact sheet issued during the Trump administration, which drew on classified intelligence, siad that the “U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and seasonal illnesses.”
The Jan. 15 fact sheet added that this fact “raises questions about the credibility” of Dr. Shi and criticized Beijing for its “deceit and disinformation” while acknowledging that the U.S. government hasn’t determined exactly how the pandemic began.
Despite having dismissed the possibility of the coronavirus lab leak theory on several occasions, Fauci has claimed that he has had an “open mind” about the lab leak theory.
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