Curiously, he failed to mention that his agency had funded coronavirus experiments in Wuhan so dangerous that they had been banned in the US by the Obama administration. Fauci knew, too, that eminent scientists privately harboured concerns Covid-19’s genetic sequence had unusual features inconsistent with evolutionary theory.
Yet he reassured the public that there was no reason to suspect a laboratory incident in Wuhan and, as he did so, Fauci cited as evidence a new scientific paper.
Far from being a conclusive, rigorous scientific study, it was, in fact, a piece of commentary that had been rejected from a prestigious medical journal.
This is not to blame Fauci for the pandemic, although his agency may have funded the research which created Covid-19.
The culpability truly lies in Wuhan where scientists were pushing the boundaries of acceptable experimentation on coronaviruses to make them more infectious and transmissible to humans.
For years the scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been playing God, and had grown increasingly bold and, as it turns out, shockingly careless, conducing their almost existential experiments in low-security laboratories.
But Fauci’s role in claiming the virus was natural, when he had no incontrovertible evidence to make such a claim, goes to the very heart of the cover-up over the origins of Covid-19. Instead of advancing the world’s understanding of what was unfolding, he was deliberately covering it up and, in doing so, creating confusion that crippled the world for years.
He also led desperate and diabolic anti-scientific efforts to shut down investigation into the origins of Covid-19; so anxious was he to divert attention from a lab leak and what would surely follow – accountability of him and his agency.
The early insistence of zoonosis from a such an esteemed and trusted figure saw the lab leak theory assigned to the conspiracy pile, censored by tech giants and ridiculed by the media.
Unravelling the web of cover-ups, conflicts of interest and false narratives surrounding the origins of Covid-19 has been a large part of my life over the past 3½ years.
I’ve written an investigative book, created a documentary and a podcast and written dozens and dozens of newspaper articles, features and television reports.
I’ve interviewed hundreds of scientists, government officials, investigators, intelligence agency insiders and whistleblowers from all over the world. They each share a common determination; to discover the truth of the origins of Covid-19.
Piecing together information from these individuals has helped to form a more complete picture of what we know about how the first pandemic in 100 years began.
As we near the fourth anniversary since Covid shook the world, there’s a new chapter in this investigation – a documentary airing on Tuesday night on Sky News called What Really Happened in Wuhan, the Next Chapter.
For the first time, Fauci’s boss, the former assistant secretary for preparedness and response, Dr Robert Kadlec, fronts the cameras to divulge their confidential conversations where they decided it would be best if they downplayed the possibility of a lab leak.
Ostensibly, this was to encourage co-operation from China, but Kadlec believes Fauci had reason to protect his own reputation and that of his institute which had funded research in Wuhan.
Haunted by the downstream effects of the decision they made to divert attention away from accusations of a lab leak, Kadlec says he still lies awake at night, reflecting on what they did.
So eager were scientists to shield China from any suggestion its scientific research had started the pandemic, and to protect their own research from being subject to new regulations, there was complicity among international scientists in downplaying or rejecting the lab leak theory.
As a result, there have been no moves to regulate or ban gain-of-function experiments on coronaviruses or other pathogens with pandemic potential globally.
Yet scientists from the four groups within the US intelligence community that engage in scientific analysis all concur that SARS-CoV-2 was most likely genetically engineered.
In our new documentary, Kadlec warns that another pandemic could easily eventuate because the lessons haven’t been learned from Covid-19.
For all the excessive government intervention during the pandemic, the most fundamental step of having a conversation about whether scientists should stop dangerous experiments on coronaviruses hasn’t taken place.
It’s also incomprehensible that an event that killed seven million globally would not be deemed significant enough for our world leaders to raise at a diplomatic level with China.
It’s bewildering that there has been no serious investigation into the origins of Covid-19.
It speaks to the lack of courage and political conviction of our world leaders that it’s been left to congressional subcommittees, journalists and internet sleuths to investigate the most consequential period of our lifetimes.
And so, this latest Sky News documentary on Tuesday night plays a role in moving the public debate on this topic forward, providing fresh information about the scientific research that may have started the outbreak in Wuhan, and airing more staggering claims of how public debate was silenced at the highest levels.
Sharri Markson is a Sky News host whose documentary What Really Happened in Wuhan: the Next Chapter will air tonight at 8pm on Sky News
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