Fact checkers follow the facts to find the truth.
==
"It is also clearly stated, very clearly stated, that China was very much the junior partner in the development of the Covid strain that was released. "
There's no actual evidence that Mother Nature needed a partner; lots of conspiracy theories about it, but no evidence.
Showing more:
BREAKING: Dr. Anthony Fauci condemns attacks against him over the origins of the COVID-19 virus, says, strong evidence suggests that it did not come from a lab in Wuhan, China, but from natural occurrence, says still, he keeps an open mind, says the NIH did the right thing by funding a grant in China to 'do some surveillance studies on what is out there, which is a perfectly appropriate thing to do,' says, 'the precursor virus could not possibly turn into SARS-CoV-2,' insists that he believes the virus did not come from the lab. Dr. Fauci has had many clashes with Senator
@RandPaul
on the issue over what Senator Paul has described as false claims. WATCH
Rachel Maddow: Well, in one case, they're asking you to do something different in the government response to HIV and AIDS, and in the other, they want to kill you or lock you up or punish you. As Steve Bannon said, "put your head on a pike." In the fragmented information environment we're in now, and this is one of the things you land on at the end of the book, it's not that misinformation and disinformation are new, but in the current media environment, it can spread so fast and swamp factually grounded information. I want to give you an opportunity to respond in the cogent way I know you can to the claims made against you by the Trump movement and certain members of Congress who were shouting at you the other day in that hearing. They have accused you of creating the COVID vaccine and covering up the real story, claiming that the virus was either deliberately or accidentally created. Could you respond to those claims?
Dr. Fauci: Yeah, well, they're preposterous. We don't know the origin of this virus. It either somehow came out of a lab where Chinese scientists went into the environment, got infected, and played with it, or it was a natural spillover from an animal to a human in the Wuhan market. I keep a completely open mind. The virological and epidemiological evidence, according to most qualified virologists, strongly favors, though not definitively, a natural occurrence. But since it isn't definitive, I keep an open mind. What they say that's incorrect is that the NIH funded a grant in China, and through an indirect grant, funded a firm in New York that did a sub-award to do some surveillance studies on what is out there, which is a perfectly appropriate thing to do. In fact, I would probably be held as incompetent if we didn't do that. As it turns out, the viruses studied under the NIH grant are evolutionarily, or phylogenetically (a big word), so distant from SARS-CoV-2 that there's no chance in the world that someone could make that virus turn into SARS-CoV-2. So, this attack that we funded a project that turned into COVID is completely preposterous. Anybody who knows anything about virology will say that it's so distant that the precursor virus could not possibly turn into SARS-CoV-2, even if you tried.
Host: So, you mean looking at it molecularly, this virus under study, in terms of NIH having any involvement, is so dissimilar to the virus that caused the pandemic that there's no chance there, even if you tried?
Dr. Fauci: Even if you tried to do it. But that still doesn't rule out the possibility that somewhere in China, out of a lab, came the virus. That's why I always say, over and over again, even though the evidence strongly weighs towards it being a natural occurrence, I keep an open mind that we still don't know what the origin is.
Host: I have so much more to ask you. |
