Dr. Anthony Fauci, the scientific face of America’s pandemic response, dismissed the theory that coronavirus originated in a lab in Wuhan, contradicting the president and his Secretary of State in an escalating confrontation with China.
“The best evidence shows the virus behind the pandemic was not made in a lab in China,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said in an exclusive interview with National Geographic published on Monday. “Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species.”
He added that he doesn’t believe the alternate theory that someone discovered coronavirus in the wild, brought it to a lab and then it accidentally unleashed it on the public.
Fauci’s statement contradicts an April 30 comment by President Donald Trump that he had seen convincing evidence that the coronavirus originated from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he’d seen “enormous evidence” supporting the theory, but didn’t elaborate.
The New York Times also reported last week the administration is pressuring some within the intelligence community to lend weight to the WIV theory. There is not yet any publicly available evidence supporting the WIV’s involvement in the pandemic.
China has roundly rejected any accusation that it mishandled the outbreak or that the WIV was involved in the pandemic. On Monday, The Global Times newspaper—owned by the official publication of the Chinese Communist Party—published an editorial demanding that Pompeo provide any evidence for his claim, suggesting he was “bluffing.”
The Chinese government has often rejected criticisms that it mishandled the epidemic, stating that international critics are merely spreading propaganda to distract from their own mistakes during the pandemic.
U.S. intelligence has concluded that the COVID-19 virus was neither man-made nor genetically modified, though officials are investigating whether it could have been released from the WIV.
Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and a prominent member of President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force, joins task force response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx in their doubt of Trump and Pompeo’s claim.
In a Sunday appearance on CBS News’ Face the Nation, Dr. Birx said the evidence is lacking to prove that the coronavirus epidemic began from an accident in the Wuhan laboratory.
On April 28, Newsweek reported that NIAID funded scientists at the WIV and other institutions for work on gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses. Gain-of-function research focuses on genetic and adaptive changes that alter an organism’s behavior.
In 2019, the NIAID provided backing for the National Institutes of Health to commit $3.7 million over six years for research including some studies into gain-of-function. This money came after another $3.7 million, 5-year project for studying various bat coronaviruses. That project concluded in 2019.
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
