Former director of the UN National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr Anthony Fauci testified this week at a sub-committee House hearing about America’s response to the pandemic and theories about the origins of the virus – where he also denied having bribed scientists with grant money.
The hearing, Fauci's first public testimony since his retirement from government service, became heated while he was grilled about various issues, including the basis for public health recommendations during the pandemic.
Fauci denied being related to the social distancing measures implemented countrywide, and added that were still “some things the US needs to work on to be more prepared for another pandemic”.
He said “in some respects”, the US was better prepared to deal with a health crisis than in 2020, “but in other things, I am still disappointed”, reports CNN.
He cited the tightening of communication between the federal response and local public health officials as an example, saying there was a “disconnect between the healthcare system and the public health system” and that specifically, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention could not demand information from local agencies, resulting in a lag in sharing data.
Possible origins of virus
Fauci testified that in early 2020, two scientists – Jeremy Farrar, then director of the Wellcome Trust in the UK and Kristian Andersen, a scientist at Scripps Research – called to say they and others were concerned the Covid virus might have been manipulated in the lab.
A day later, he had a conference call with several international virologists to discuss lab manipulation or possible spillover from animals to humans. He did not try to steer the conversation in any direction.
The virologists decided to more carefully examine the genomic sequence, after which “several who at first were concerned about lab manipulation became convinced the virus was not deliberately manipulated”.
They had decided the most likely scenario was a virus that transferred from an animal to a human, “although they still kept an open mind”, Fauci said.
“Accusations that I influenced the scientists to change their minds by bribing them with millions of dollars in grant money are absolutely false, and simply preposterous,” Fauci said, noting that he had no input in a paper published in March 2020 that discussed the possible origins of the virus.
The US Department of Energy assessed last year that it had “low confidence” in the lab leak theory. No US federal agency believes the virus created as a bioweapon.
Social distancing
The 1.8m social distance guideline did not come from him but from the CDC, he clarified.
Fauci had repeated the guidance during the pandemic, and had once said there was no science behind it – but, he explained this week, what he meant was “that there were no clinical trials to back it up”.
He added that he believed the CDC used studies about droplets years ago as reasoning for guidelines.
At the time, the WHO recommended that people keep a 1m between them. But even as early as 2021, scientists were starting to understand that the virus was airborne, and could spread through droplets and aerosols – smaller particles that could travel even farther and float in the air.
That’s in large part why public health agencies emphasised the importance of masks.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Fauci to retire after half a century
Fauci’s dangerous game: Distorting the truth to achieve laudable goals
Trump administration targets Dr Anthony Fauci’s ‘errors’
Fauci: US sees ‘disturbing surge’ of infections in some states