At a House subcommittee hearing on Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci—former head of the NIAID—spoke about the US reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic and the virus’s origins.
After leaving government service, this was Fauci’s first opportunity to testify publicly on Capitol Hill. It became heated as Republicans questioned Fauci on a variety of issues, such as the reasoning behind public health recommendations made during the pandemic and the usage of public health officials’ email accounts.
Important points from the hearing are as follows:
For the United States to be better prepared for the next epidemic, communication gaps must be closed.
After COVID-19, Fauci stated that the United States still has more work to do to be better prepared for future pandemics; he added that while the nation is better prepared in “some respects” than in 2020, “but in others, I am still disappointed.”
He thinks the United States may improve its response in the future by effectively communicating with local public health experts.
A “disconnect between the health-care system and the public health system” existed during COVID-19 in the United States, according to Fauci. There was a delay in data sharing because the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were unable to request information from local authorities.
According to Fauci, “We were at a disadvantage,” and the CDC is currently developing solutions to address this issue.
Republicans scrutinize Fauci’s email use as a public health officer.
On Monday, Fauci stated in testimony that he has never conducted business through his personal email and was unaware that a former top advisor at the National Institutes of Health had used unofficial email prior to a congressional investigation.
Regarding a previous senior advisor at the NIH, “What you saw, I believe, with Dr. Morens was an aberrancy and an outlier,” Fauci stated during Monday’s testimony. “This one incident that you bring up is an anomaly and an outlier, and the people working at the NIH and NIAID are a really dedicated bunch of people.”
Formerly, a subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee dealing with the coronavirus outbreak made public a number of private emails that Republicans claim prove that certain National Institutes of Health staff attempted to circumvent disclosure requirements by erasing communications.
Committee members accused Dr. David Morens, who had previously served as Fauci’s senior adviser, of engaging in “nefarious behavior” in a memo that was published at the end of May. Although Fauci and Morens collaborated on research papers when Morens was a senior adviser to the department, Fauci stated that Morens’ responsibilities did not include providing policy advice to the department.
Committee members cite an email from Morens to a coworker in which the subject says, “There is no worry about FOIAs,” implying that Morens would use Fauci’s private account to send emails. Emails sent or received by any federal agency are subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which states that anyone may request and receive these records. In order to keep certain information out of the public record, Morens can also provide it to Fauci, according to his email.
Possible origins of the COVID-19 virus are discussed during Fauci’s testimony.
In his testimony, Fauci dealt with “certain issues that have been seriously distorted concerning me,” namely the question of where the COVID-19 virus originated.
As Fauci testified, he was notified in early 2020 via phone conversations with two scientists, Jeremy Farrar (then the director of the Wellcome Trust in the UK) and Kristian Andersen (a scientist at Scripps Research), that they and others were worried about the possibility of lab manipulation of the COVID-19 virus. Several worldwide virologists discussed lab manipulation or potential animal-to-human spillover the day after those calls, according to Fauci, who said he had participated in the conference call. The debate, he said, was “lively,” with valid points advanced by all parties. According to Fauci, he made no effort to guide the conversation in any particular way.
“Several who at first were concerned about lab manipulation became convinced that the virus was not deliberately manipulated,” Fauci said after the virologists on the joint call opted to further investigate the genome sequence. The most probable explanation, according to Fauci, was a human-to-animal virus transmission, “although they still kept an open mind.”
“The accusation being circulated that I influenced the scientists to change their minds by bribing them with millions of dollars in grant money is absolutely false, and simply preposterous,” Fauci said, noting he had no input into the content on a paper published in March 2020 that discussed the possible origins of the virus.
A group of specialists from the World Health Organization, together with other prominent scientists from around the globe, have been looking into the virus’s origins. The majority of researchers in China think that the virus first infected animals before moving on to people. The possibility that the virus escaped from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology has also been raised by some research.
Although the origins of the pandemic remain a mystery, the majority of US intelligence agencies have concluded that the virus was not genetically modified. The community is still divided on the matter, even though a US intelligence assessment from last year stated that either origin may be true. In a previous assessment, the US Department of Energy expressed “low confidence” in the lab leak idea. The idea that the COVID-19 virus was intentionally engineered to be a bioweapon has not been advanced by any US federal entity.
According to Fauci, “I cannot account, nor can anyone account for other things that might be going on in China,” which is why he has maintained and will maintain his stance of keeping an open mind about the origin. This statement was made on Monday.
According to Fauci, he and his family have been the targets of threats.
Fauci described the death threats, as well as threats against his wife and daughters, that he received while serving as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“Everything from harassments from emails, texts, letters of myself, my wife, and my three daughters” was Fauci’s response when Democratic Representative Debbie Dingell asked him to describe the threats. The arrest of two people was preceded by credible death threats; by this, I mean that the individuals in question were obviously planning to murder me. Plus, I’ve had to rely on protective services almost constantly.
According to Fauci, he was worried that the COVID-19 pandemic’s threats against public health personnel would act as a “powerful disincentive” for talented individuals to pursue careers in the field.
I don’t want to go there is what they tell themselves. ‘Why should I become engaged with that?’ he asked.
He stated as evidence that the employees are hesitant to endure the same hardships that their coworkers are facing.
According to Fauci, the 6-foot social distance rule was put out by the CDC.
In response to questions about where the 6-foot social distance guidelines from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic originated, Fauci said that they were really issued by the US CDC.
This information originated from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Those kinds of recommendations to schools were the responsibility of the CDC, not me,” Fauci stated.
During the epidemic, Fauci reiterated the recommendations despite his earlier claims that they were unsupported by science. By this, he meant that no clinical trials had provided evidence to support them.
According to Fauci, “there was no science behind it” (meaning there was no clinical research) and “I didn’t make the recommendation,” hence his statement “it had little to do with me” was essentially true.
Furthermore, he held the belief that the 6-foot standards were justified by CDC research on droplets conducted many years ago.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) initially advocated a 6-foot “social distancing” rule for individuals who needed to be in close proximity to others during the pandemic. This rule was based on the assumption that larger contaminated droplets would fall from the sky at a high rate and wouldn’t be able to go farther than 6 feet. A meter (3.3 feet) was the recommended distance at the time by the World Health Organization. The fact that the coronavirus may float in the air and spread through tiny particles called aerosols and droplets was first recognized by scientists in 2021.
That’s why public health organizations have stressed the need for masks—to keep airborne germs to a minimum, thereby reducing the likelihood of illness.