Dr Anthony Fauci, Chief Medical Advisor to the US President, has called for an open investigation into virus origins as he is “not convinced” with Covid-19 developed naturally.
Dr. Fauci, when asked if he was still confident that covid-19 developed naturally, said “I am not convinced. I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we find out what happened to the best of our ability.”
Interestingly, last year, Dr Fauci had dismissed the lab-leak theory.
“Certainly, the people who have investigated it have said that it emerged from an animal reservoir that then infected individuals but it could have been something else. We need to find that out. I am personally in favor of any investigation that looks into the origin of the virus,” he added.
Fauci did not explicitly rule out the possibility of occurrence of the covid virus by serial passage in a laboratory: “I do not have any accounting of what the Chinese may have done, and I’m fully in favour of any further investigation of what went on in China,” he said.
“However, I will repeat, the NIH and NIAID categorically have not funded the gain of functional research to be conducted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
However, Fauci’s more recent remarks show an evolution in the doctor’s beliefs on coronavirus’s origins over the past year.
