Fauci emails show he was told Covid may have been engineered at beginning of pandemic but he publicly downplayed theory
ANTHONY Fauci's emails show he was told Covid may have been engineered at the beginning of the pandemic, but publicly downplayed the theory.
The emails also reveal that Fauci got a personal thank you note from the head of a nonprofit that used a government grant to fund research at the Wuhan lab suspected in the lab leak theory.
The contents of some of the messages have led to renewed calls for Fauci, the longtime head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, to be fired from Republicans like Sen Rand Paul and Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene.
On January 31, 2020, more than two months before was declared a pandemic, Fauci forwarded a copy of a Science magazine article called Mining Coronavirus Genomes for Clues to the Outbreak's Origins to US virus researcher Kristian Anderson and Sir Jeremy Farrar, who runs a global health charity in Britain.
"This just came out today. You may have seen it. If not, it is of interest to the current discussion," Fauci wrote in an email with the article attached.
"From my perspective, your comments are brave, and coming from your trusted voice, will help dispel myths being spun around the virus's origins," Daszak's note continues.
Fauci replied, "Many thanks for your kind note," the next day.
After Covid-19 was declared a pandemic last year, Fauci publicly downplayed the possibility that the virus didn't develop naturally.
The doctor maintained that the most likely origin was a transmission from animal to human in a Chinese "wet market."
However, Fauci has changed his tune in recent weeks.
At an event last month Fauci said he was ";not convinced" anymore that the virus evolved naturally.
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"I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we continue to find out to the best of our ability what happened," he said.
"Certainly, the people who investigated it say it likely was the emergence from an animal reservoir that then infected individuals, but it could have been something else, and we need to find that out."