Dr Anthony Fauci, the former Chief Medical Advisor to the White House, will on Monday testify in the US Congress on the issue of the origin of Covid-19.
Fauci will be grilled by the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic of the Oversight Committee of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the US Congress.
Fauci is among the top infectious disease expert in the United States. He served as the Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) during 1984-2022. As the NIAID Director, he became a leading figure in issuing public guidance and shaping popular opinion through the thick of the Covid-19 pandemic. Critics, however, have long sought to grill Fauci on his role in the gain of function (GOF) research conducted in China with American grants and assistance that’s suspected of having set off the Covid-19 pandemic.
The GOF research refers to the kind of research that gives a pathogen —bacteria or virus— characteristics that it does not naturally has. Usually, such characteristics include increased transmissibility or severity.
The Monday’s testimony will be Fauci’s first since he retired from his public roles in 2022. Previously, he gave two seven-hour-long closed-door interviews to the Select Subcommittee.
Fauci accused of lying about GOF research
Fauci has been accused of lying about his role in funding GOF research in China.
The NIAID gave multiple grants to a non-profit EcoHealth Alliance that further distributed it to Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and the Wuhan University Center for Animal Experiment (WUCAE) in China for GOF research, as per the US government documents and communication accessed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by The Intercept.
Before these documents released publicly, Fauci had told the US Congress “NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology”. The NIH refers to the US government’s National Institutes of Health which includes many health institutes including NIAID. The Intercept’s findings showed that Fauci’s claim was not correct.
It has also been reported that, in the initial days of the Covid-19 pandemic, Fauci met with Ralph Baric, an American scientist who is longtime collaborator with WIV on GOF research. US Right to Know in a report said that while Fauci could have met Baric just over his expertise in coronaviruses, there is evidence that he has not been forthcoming about his concerns regarding WIV’s activities with regard to Covid-origin.
“Together the emails suggest Fauci has not disclosed the depth of his concerns about the Wuhan lab and its connection to the research enterprise he steered for decades,” said the report, adding that Fauci dispatched aides to learn about grants to WIV soon after the pandemic was reported.
“Fauci was alerted in late January [2020] that the genome of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, betrayed signs of engineering. A small group of virologists circulated a paper coauthored by Baric and Shi describing a SARSr-CoV experiment that employed engineering. Fauci immediately dispatched an aide to interrogate whether his institute, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had any connection to the study,” said the report.
What do we know of Covid-origin?
After more than four years of the first emergence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19 disease, there is no conclusive evidence of how the virus first emerged. While the belief that it jumped naturally from an animal —bats, most likely— to humans was the mainstream belief initially, the lack of any conclusive evidence for the same even after four years has challenged it.
On the other hand, an increasing body of scientists, journalists, and other experts have built a circumstantial case for a lab-origin of Covid-19. As per them, the evidence suggests that the virus could have leaked from a lab in Wuhan —the WIV— in an accident. Now, it is known that scientists at the WIV were indulging in GOF research on coronaviruses for several years and one of these viruses has been found to be close ancestors of SARS-CoV-2.
WIV’s Shi Zhengli, popularly known as the ‘batwoman’ for her work on bat coronaviruses, carried out research on coronaviruses for years with US collaborators and grants. With EcoHealth Alliance’s Peter Daszak, she collected 630 types of coronaviruses between 2010 and 2015 and also collaborated with Baric, a specialist of GOF whom Fauci also met.
In 2015, Baric and Shi published a paper in which they detailed how they fused a bat coronavirus and a human coronavirus. The resultant virus could infect mice as well as humans, as per the paper. It meant that they gave new infectious properties to viruses that were not originally there.
The fact that the Chinese scientists were researching coronaviruses and carrying out GOF research, including the closest-known ancestor of SARS-CoV-2 called RaTG13 for years, has led to an increasing body of experts to say that it’s likely that the virus could have escaped from the lab. The WIV is next to the location in Wuhan where the first publicly-known outbreak was reported.
 "'Source of anxiety': China’s new Fujian aircraft carrier pushes India, Japan and South Korea to upgrade")
 "China accuses MI6 of recruiting 2 state officials to spy for the UK")
 "With China willing to discuss 'Dalai Lama’s future', Tibetan fate hangs in balance")
 "Ukrainian president Zelensky accuses China of hindering peace summit")