Fauci dismisses coronavirus lab origin claims as ‘circular argument’
- Leading US health official says evidence strongly indicates virus originated in the wild and jumped species
- The well-regarded doctor has also warned of a second wave of infections in the US later in the year
In an interview with National Geographic, Fauci, a member of Trump’s White House coronavirus task force, said the virus likely originated from an animal source. He described the possibility that the virus had accidentally escaped from a lab as a “circular argument”.
“If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what’s out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated – the way the mutations have naturally evolved,” he said.
“A number of very qualified evolutionary biologists have said that everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species.”
Fauci also said there was a risk of a second wave of infections in the US later in the year, as states were beginning to reopen businesses, if the country was not prepared with enough tests and supplies for its health system.
“If we do it correctly, then we would be able to blunt and diminish the daily rate of infections in this country as we get into the summer,” he said. “But I don’t think there’s a chance that this virus is just going to disappear. It’s going to be around and, if given the opportunity, it will resurge.”
Wuhan lab conspiracy theories shine spotlight on super-secure facilities
There has also been mounting pressure – including from the US, Australia, and European Union – for an independent inquiry into the origins of the virus in China, which experts say likely originated from a natural animal reservoir.
Fauci was asked whether it was possible the virus could emerge somewhere else, but be brought to the lab and then leaked. “But that means it was in the wild to begin with. That’s why I don’t get what they’re talking about [and] why I don’t spend a lot of time going in on this circular argument,” he said.
Despite the Trump administration’s allegations, British and Australian intelligence sources have said there is no evidence the coronavirus originated from the Wuhan lab, even with persistent concerns about China’s lack of transparency during the pandemic.
Sources cited by British newspaper The Guardian on Monday contradicted White House claims about the links between the virus and the Wuhan institute, and Australian intelligence sources told The Sydney Morning Herald they had not been provided with strong evidence the lab was the source of the outbreak.
The Daily Telegraph, an Australian tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch, earlier highlighted a 15-page dossier by intelligence agencies of the Five Eyes network – made up of the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Britain – showing China had destroyed evidence of the coronavirus outbreak.
But sources told The Guardian and The Sydney Morning Herald the document in question was based on open-source material, or information already available in the public domain, rather than classified information from the Five Eyes intelligence network.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Tuesday the virus “most likely” originated from a wildlife wet market in Wuhan, but did not rule out Trump's lab-as-origin theory.