Jon Michael Raasch writes for the Daily Mail about Dr. Anthony Fauci’s eye-opening congressional testimony this week.
Dr. Anthony Fauci made several stunning admissions during testimony before Congress Monday as Republicans sought to pin blame on him for pandemic-era blunders.
The hearing was a culmination of a years-long effort to find the origins of COVID, identify missteps during the response to the pandemic and get closure on the policies that restricted normal American life at the time.
But answers to those questions were hard to come by in the 3.5 hour hearing before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Fauci, in a dark suit and tie, largely kept his composure as he fielded questions about his role as National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director. He was scrutinized over whether his agency was involved in risky gain-of-function research, his connection to colleagues’ misconduct and his role in crafting COVID policies.
Lawmakers yelled at each other and Dr. Fauci and tempers flared as Congress revisited one of the darker periods in recent memory.
The hearing did not uncover the definitive origin of the COVID pandemic.
Neither has the committee been able to approximately define, beyond a shadow of a doubt, where the disease came from.
But based on reports from intelligence agencies, including the FBI, it must likely originated from a leak in a Wuhan, China, lab.
Fauci did concede that the illness could be manmade and may have come from a laboratory.
‘I keep an open mind as to what the origin is,’ he said.
Fauci confirmed during Monday’s hearing that the lab leak theory – the idea that COVID began at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) is a real ‘possibility.’
His admission that COVID may have began at the WIV comes four years after he backed the publication of a paper which threw cold water on the lab leak theory called the ‘Proximal Origin’ paper.
