In a riveting congressional hearing, Dr Anthony Fauci, the prominent US government scientist, made major revelations about the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic and claims of cover-up. With unwavering candour, Fauci addressed a myriad of contentious issues surrounding the virus, declaring, “Nothing to hide.” As the first day of grilling came to an end, he left the room after shaking hands with multiple White House staffers, while Ranking Member Raul Ruiz thanked him for his testimony and service to the country.
Fauci’s testimony on Covid cover-up claims
‘Dr. Fauci did not fund research’
In his final remarks, Raul Ruiz highlighted that Raul Ruiz wasn’t at fault for supporting the research that caused the COVID-19 pandemic, nor was he involved in any falsehoods regarding gain-of-function research in China’s Wuhan. Furthermore, Ruiz declared that Fauci wasn’t behind any effort to suppress the lab leak theory.
In a debatable exchange with Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis regarding the origins of COVID-19. He said thinking the virus came from a lab wasn’t automatically a conspiracy theory. But he did say that some people twisted that idea into conspiracy theories. “What is conspiracy is the kind of distortions of that particular subject, like it was a lab leak and I was parachuted into the CIA like Jason Bourne and told the CIA that they should really not be talking about a lab leak,” Fauci said.
Fauci recalls threats and harassment
On Monday, June 3, Republicans united to challenge Dr. Anthony Fauci, aiming to interrogate his purportedly dubious connections to the COVID-19 pandemic and dig deeper into the true origins of the virus that posed a global threat. The leading US research scientist proceeded to recount how he and his family dealt with death threats during his tenure as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“Everything from harassments from emails, texts, letters of myself, my wife, my three daughters. There have been credible death threats leading to the arrest of two individuals – and credible death threats mean someone who clearly was on their way to kill me. And it’s required my having protective services essentially all the time,” he said.
Covid 19 hearing: ‘need of cost-benefit ratio’
Dr. Anthony Fauci noted that while assessing how the United States has handled the Covid-19 situation, public health experts will carefully consider the “cost-benefit ratio” of measures such as vaccination requirements. He addressed concerns about whether these mandates might have made some people hesitant to get vaccinated during his testimony. Fauci also defended the effectiveness of vaccines, highlighting how they have saved countless lives in the US and globally.
“That’s something that I think we need to go back now, when we do an after-the-event evaluation about whether or not given the psyche of the country and the pushback that you get from those types of things — we need to reevaluate the cost-benefit ratio of those types of things.” He remarked.
The United States needs to be prepared more for the next pandemic: Fauci
During the testimony, Democratic Representative Robert Garcia, who lost his parents to COVID-19, commended Dr Anthony Fauci for his policies that have saved lives throughout the pandemic and labelled him as an ‘American hero.’ Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, acknowledged that while some progress has been made, there are still areas where the country falls short in handling health crises. He highlighted the importance of the US enhancing its readiness for upcoming pandemics.
“I think one of the things that was really a problem with the response was the degree of divisiveness that we had in the country about a lack of a coherent response where we were having people, for reasons that had nothing to do with public health or science, refusing to adhere to public health intervention measures.”