Concerns are rising about what American scientists and federal health officials found out about the root of the coronavirus and whether conflicting evidence was suppressed and withheld from the public.
Concerns are rising about what American scientists and federal health officials found out about the root of the coronavirus and whether conflicting evidence was suppressed and withheld from the public.
The Coronavirus
In a Fox News special report with Bret Baier, went an interview in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic and explored documents obtained showing that the virus may have originated in a Wuhan, China lab, said Dr. Anthony Fauci. According to the timetable of Baier, Fauci was informed on January 27, 2020, that his NIAID had been indirectly sponsoring the Wuhan lab by EcoHealth, a US-based scientific non-profit that had been working with novel coronaviruses.
On January 31, Dr. Kristian Andersen, a well-known virologist at the Scripps Lab, privately informed Fauci that after a talk with his colleagues, some of COVID-19’s features look possibly be engineered and the “genome is inconsistent with predictions from evolutionary theory.” Andersen also said that the situation needs to investigate more closely.
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Lab Leak Theory
Fauci summoned a conference call with colleagues where he was told that risky experiments with the novel coronavirus may not have gone through proper biosafety review and oversight. Fauci called many virologists around the world, and notes from the meeting obtained by Special Report reveal that suspicions of the lab leak theory were suppressed over concerns of how people would react to news of possible government involvement in china.
During the meeting, then-National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins expressed his concern that “science and international harmony” might be jeopardized and claims of China’s involvement could distract top scientists. Moreover, another scientist in the meeting said the possibility of the virus jumped from a bat to a person in nature and the virus could be generated in a lab much easier. Furthermore, evidence also shows that the virus originated in a seafood and wild animal market in Wuhan, stated by Fauci and others during the meeting.
after four days, five researchers who were on the call authored preliminary findings abandoning their early private beliefs that the virus was likely the result of a slab leak. It is unclear what fresh evidence prompted the reversal of opinion. Fauci and Collins worked behind the scenes to squash the lab leak theory and communicated to each other after President Trump refused to dismiss the market theory, saying “anything NIH can do to assist put down this very dangerous conspiracy.”
President Biden charged the U.S. intelligence agency to investigate the origins of COVID after a year. However, the report was inconclusive, owing to China’s refusal to assist. Collins told Special Report that he is open to the possibility the virus originated in a lab while dismissing the idea that it was made from scratch by humans.
During the last interview before leaving NIH, Collins stood by the hypothesis that the virus evolved in nature. Special Report’s findings highlight frustration in the scientific community stemming from lack of full information and incomplete or inaccurate facts as Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill push for more information on what the federal government knew about the virus.
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