Dr. Anthony Fauci, solidifying his image as a political opportunist whose opinions are based on congruence with the media narrative rather than data, has now said he is “not convinced” that COVID-19 originated naturally – after repeatedly dismissing such claims over the past year.
The statement was made in an interview published on Saturday, in which PolitiFact’s Katie Sanders asked Fauci, “There’s a lot of cloudiness around the origins of COVID-19 still, so I wanted to ask, are you still confident that it developed naturally?”
“No actually,” Fauci responded. “I am not convinced about that, 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.”
“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,” Fauci added. “So, you know, that’s the reason why I said I’m perfectly in favor of any investigation that looks into the origin of the virus.”
Over the past year, Fauci has condescendingly dismissed similar comments numerous times when it was suggested by officials within the Trump administration. During an April 2020 press conference, for example, after then-President Trump suggested it was possible COVID-19 did not originate naturally, Fauci told reporters that the virus’s evolution was “totally consistent” with expected natural evolution.
“There was a study recently that we can make available to you, where a group of highly qualified evolutionary virologists looked at the sequences there and the sequences in bats as they evolve. And the mutations that it took to get to the point where it is now is totally consistent with a jump of a species from an animal to a human,” Fauci said during the press conference.
A month later, Fauci made similar comments in an interview with National Geographic when asked if the virus could have originated unnaturally. Fauci said, “If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what’s out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated … Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species.”
Fox News reported on the hypocrisy by Fauci and the media on Monday, writing, “This time last year, the mainstream media largely dismissed the Wuhan coronavirus lab leak theory as a “fringe” or “conspiracy” theory…”
Fox News pointed out “A few examples of how the media were reporting on the lab leak theory a year ago, when Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., suggested it had emerged from a lab known for bat coronavirus experiments.”
The examples highlighted by Fox News were articles from different mainstream media publications: “‘Sen. Tom Cotton Repeats Fringe Theory of Coronavirus Origins,’ the New York Times wrote. ‘Trump says US investigating whether coronavirus spread after China lab mishap but cites no evidence,’ a USA Today article read. ‘New research explores how conservative media misinformation may have intensified the severity of the pandemic,’ the Washington Post wrote.”
