[Hot Air] Is that so?It’s true that he’s never excluded the possibility of a lab leak, but how could he? Barring the discovery of SARS-CoV-2 in an animal host or some very uncharacteristic transparency by China about its labs, there’s no way to rule out a lab accident.
He sure did sound skeptical when he discussed it with National Geographic last year, though:
"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 ... Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species," Fauci says. Based on the scientific evidence, he also doesn’t entertain an alternate theory—that someone found the coronavirus in the wild, brought it to a lab, and then it accidentally escaped.Compare that to his tone on May 11 of this year, when he was asked whether he’s still confident that the virus developed naturally:
"I am not convinced about that, I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we continue to find out to the best of our ability what happened," Fauci said. "Certainly, the people who investigated it say it likely was the emergence from an animal reservoir that then infected individuals, but it could have been something else, and we need to find that out. So, you know, that’s the reason why I said I’m perfectly in favor of any investigation that looks into the origin of the virus."
His May 11 comments sound like someone who’s keeping an open mind. His comments last year ... do not. Yet here he is today glossing over the evolution in his position: