Hot Rocks in Congress on COVID's origin

A subcommittee led by the Republicans spent more than a year investigating the country's response to pandemic, and if a research funded by the United States in China may have played a role in how the pandemic started. The Democrats began the session, saying the investigation so far has found no evidence that Dr. Fauci did something wrong.

Mr. Fauci a voice trusted during the pandemic and targets of political attacks, even death threats spent 14 hours on the two-day bow in January, at a hot session on the same commission, but with closed doors. On Monday, he was questioned again, publicly and in front of the cameras, for the first time since he ended more than five decades of service at government agencies.

This time he faced new questions about the credibility of the agency he headed, the National Institute of Health. Last month, the House of Representatives' subcommittee revealed several emails sent by an institute colleague about ways to avoid public data laws, including non-discussion of controversial issues in government emails.

Many scientists believe that the virus has likely appeared in the wild and passed from animals to humans, perhaps from a market in Wuhan, the city from which the pandemic originated. There is no new scientific information that supports the theory that the virus may have originated in a laboratory. According to an American intelligence analysis, there is not enough evidence to verify both theories. Meanwhile, a recent investigation by the Associated Press Agency found that the Chinese government blocked efforts to track the source of the virus in the first weeks of the pandemic explosion.

Mr. Fauci has long stated publicly that he was open to both theories, but according to him there is more evidence that supports the natural origin of COVID-19, given the way other deadly viruses, including the SARS and MERCS, passed on to people.

“I have repeatedly stated that I am completely open to each opportunity and that if the final evidence becomes available to prove or reject one of the theories, I am ready to accept”, he said in his opening statement at Monday's session.

Republicans have also accused Mr. Fauci of lying to Congress when he denied in May 2022 that his agency had financed a research process, in a Wuhan laboratory, on the possible impact of a virus on the real world if it was strengthened in the laboratory.

The institute for years provided funds to a nonprofit organization in New York called ʹ EcoHealth Alliance) who used some of the funds to work with a Chinese laboratory that studied coronarys that are usually carried by bats. Last month, the government suspended federal funds for the EcoHealthʹ Academy and proposed banning any future funding citing as the reason for failing to properly monitor some of the experiments conducted.

According to transcripts from interviews given in January by Mr. Fauci in Congress, he said that from a molecular point of view, it was impossible for bats viruses, studied with the ʹEco Health funds to be transformed into viruses that caused pandemics. He said the same during his opening statement Monday.

As for hiding public data, Mr. Fauci said he had never used his personal email for government work.

Dr. Fauci became a known name during the pandemic first under President Donald Trump's administration and later as President Joe Biden's chief adviser. Research by the agency he conducted for 38 years, the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, led to the production of vaccines, which enabled them to return to normal. / VOA