Anthony Fauci defends federal covid response

The nation’s former top infectious disease official defends the federal government’s leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic and denied influencing research into Covid’s origins in a congressional hearing.

Anthony Fauci was grilled on a range of issues relating to the Covid-19 pandemic. Picture: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/AFP

Dr. Anthony Fauci defended the federal government’s leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic and denied influencing research into Covid’s origins in a congressional hearing.

Fauci also denied that he conducted government business on private email, but acknowledged that a senior adviser, Dr. David Morens, had acted inappropriately.

The nation’s former top infectious disease official said Monday before the House’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic that while he has an open mind about whether the virus originated in a lab or nature, the viruses used in research funded in China by the National Institutes of Health were too distant to have evolved into the pandemic virus, SARS-CoV-2.

“I feel the more likely explanation is a spillover from an animal reservoir,” he said. But without definitive evidence either for a natural origin or lab leak, “we have to keep an open mind.” He said he didn’t try to cover up or discourage research into the possibility that the pandemic virus came from a lab. He said he didn’t edit a paper published early in the pandemic positing a natural rather than laboratory origin of the virus.

Fauci served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for more than 38 years, and helped lead the nation’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic under both Presidents Donald Trump and Biden. Fauci appeared often with Trump in the government’s early messaging about the pandemic, but he later became vilified on the right for his support of safety precautions and for opposing unproven treatments like the antimalaria drug hydroxychloroquine that was pushed by Trump and others.

At Monday’s hearing, he defended social-distancing measures and other policies that the Trump administration took in the early months of the pandemic, which killed more than a million Americans. He said the measures were based on science available at the time. Stay-at-home orders, mask mandates for young children and other measures “were important when we were trying to stop the tsunami of deaths that were occurring early on,” he said.

Fauci defended social-distancing measures that the Trump administration promoted in the early months of the pandemic. Picture: Johannes Eisele/AFP

Science evolves, he said. “When you’re dealing with a new outbreak, things change,” he said. “Covid was a moving target.” If the virus had been allowed to spread without measures to slow it, another million people might have died, he said.

Grilled about comments he made in January about a protocol that people maintain a distance of 6 feet from one another, Fauci said that the policy had been developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, not his agency. He said that when he said in January that he wasn’t aware of studies supporting the 6-foot rule, he meant that he wasn’t aware of formal clinical trials.

Responding to questions about Morens, who said in emails he had ways to get around Freedom of Information Act requirements by communicating on private emails, Fauci said, “It was a terrible thing, it was wrong, it was inappropriate.” He said Morens wasn’t a policy adviser, didn’t have regular access to him, and that he was an “outlier” in his behavior. “There is no back channel” at his former agency, he said.

Fauci faced questions about measures the administration took to reduce spread of Covid-19, the virus’s origins and research his agency, NIAID, led into emerging and potentially dangerous viruses.

Fauci, who retired at the end of 2022, was also grilled on how he and his staff handled grants and controversies involving EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit that studies wildlife and the emergence of new diseases. EcoHealth has been at the center of controversy over NIAID grants that it used to study emerging coronaviruses, including a subcontract to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the city in China where the spread of the new virus was first identified. The administration last month suspended and proposed EcoHealth Alliance for debarment from federal grants.

Fauci said he supports that move.

Social distancing bubble tents for dining are seen amid the Coronavirus pandemic in New York, December 2020. Picture: Angela Weiss/AFP

EcoHealth Alliance said in a statement that it will provide evidence to refute the allegations and “demonstrate that EcoHealth Alliance is a good steward of federal funding.” Fauci said he didn’t try to protect EcoHealth Alliance. He acknowledged that Morens had a conflict of interest given close communication with the nonprofit, but said that he hadn’t been aware of that.

The hearing grew testy at several points. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.) was admonished by committee members when she refused to refer to Fauci as “Dr.” “You belong in prison,” she said to Fauci.

Democratic attendees said that many of the Republicans’ allegations hadn’t been substantiated. “The investigation of Dr. Fauci shows he is an honorable public servant who has devoted his entire career to the public health in the public interest and he is not a comic book supervillain,” said Jamie Raskin (D., Md.), ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability.

Fauci grew emotional when answering questions about threats and harassment, and said he continues to receive death threats. He said two people had been arrested in connection with threats made on his life.

He said his agency’s main role in the pandemic was developing “safe and effective” vaccines. While durability of protection was more limited than researchers anticipated, vaccines saved lives, he said.

The Wall Street Journal