New emails from the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 have surfaced, and they are shedding light on how Dr. Anthony Fauci and other government officials responded. Fauci has publicly doubted that Covid came from a lab setting in Wuhan, China. He has consistently denied any miscalculations in research brought on by the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
Reporter Jimmy Tobias recently obtained new emails from the Freedom of Information Act between Dr. Fauci and virologists in early 2020. The emails reveal Fauci’s deep concern for the possibility of a lab leak. In an email chain between Fauci, scientist Jeremy Farrar of the Wellcome Trust, infectious disease researcher Kristian Anderson, and Director of the National Institutes of Health Francis Collins, there were warnings of the “wild west.” According to the documents, this wild west reference pertains to the hardships in China, either in infectious disease research or the WIV specifically.
After a long #FOIA fight, I just received a bunch of new unredacted emails detailing the Feb 1 2020 teleconference between Dr. Fauci and virologists discussing SARS-Cov-2: https://t.co/bSuhtJR7rM
— Jimmy Tobias (@JamesCTobias) November 22, 2022
On February 1, 2020, Fauci considered sending an alert to the FBI and MI5 about the potential lab leak. Researchers at the Wuhan lab argued that the furin cleavage site mutated, causing the lab leak.
Anderson expressed concern in the emails about “serial passage” conducted with coronaviruses in a level 2 lab in Wuhan, which is less secure than a maximum-security level 4 lab. Serial passage involves repeated infection of a host to induce mutations without genetic modifications. Witnesses believe the serial passage caused the site mutation responsible for high transmissibility in Covid.
Anderson backtracked his previous statements in another email on February 5th, 2020. He called the lab leak a conspiracy theory. But Fauci and Collins raised questions about the role serial passage played in the virus development. According to House Republican lawmakers, Fauci is connected to funding research on coronaviruses at WIV with next to no supervision but denies these allegations.
Reporters continue to search for communications between officials and scientists as the public becomes less confident in mainstream media while the White House moves on to other matters. The Biden administration is no longer interested in the origins of the pandemic, and the State Department continues to avoid questions on pressing China for further information.
