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Fauci's shifting stand on origin of virus is perplexing

chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2021-05-30 15:33
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Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, listens during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing in Washington, DC, May 26, 2021. [Photo/Agencies]

Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert of the United States, has shifted his long-held position that the COVID-19 virus developed naturally. What's behind this change?

First, Fauci is coming under increasing pressure, just as Yahoo News said in a May 11 story: Republican anger with Fauci reaches new heights.

On the same day, the White House coronavirus adviser was aggressively questioned by Republican senator Rand Paul.

Paul alleged that the National Institutes of Health was sending funding to the Wuhan lab, which then "juiced up" a virus that was originally found in bats to create a supervirus that can infect human cells.

Under huge pressure, Fauci faltered on his position by saying that he supported further investigation over China to find out whether the virus could spread from a lab or not.

Then the US media joined in. A few days later, Fauci said in an interview that he was "not convinced" that the virus developed naturally. 

And then government officials jumped on it. During the World Health Assembly, which opened on May 24, US officials called for the World Health Organization to launch more probes into the origin of the virus.

And with all these concerted efforts of experts, media and the government, the US is obviously operating its machine to direct the blame on China. It's a systematic attack.

However, during an interview with the CBS News on May 25, Fauci backed away, saying that he maintained his stance on the virus and it highly likely originated in nature.

And on the same day during a White House briefing, he did not mention the leak theory. Instead, he said that he and most others in the scientific community believe that the most likely scenario is that this was a natural occurrence, but no one knows that 100 percent for sure, so a further WHO probe is necessary.

The frequent change in attitudes by Fauci is perplexing. It remains unknown why. The RT offered a likely hypothesis: the pressure from the military conglomerate.

And finally, we have questions for the US.

Would you invite WHO experts to your country, as China did, to investigate cases?

Would you open the mysterious Fort Detrick and your biolabs all across the world to investigation?

Would you as early as possible release details about a respiratory illness outbreak in Virginia in July 2019, cases of e-cigarette, or vaping, associated lung injury in Wisconsin in 2019?

We hope the United States would also cooperate with the WHO in a scientific, open and transparent manner, as China did.

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