Dr Anthony Fauci: ‘Almost Certain’ NIH Didn’t Fund Wuhan Research that Led to COVID-19

TAPPER: “You have said that you think that it is likely that it was a natural development from animal to human, but that your mind is open about it possibly being from a lab leak.”

FAUCI: “Totally.”

TAPPER: “And the investigation is going to be about specifically whether there’s any connection, if there was a lab leak, to U.S. investments in virus research at the Wuhan lab. It’s possible, right?”

FAUCI: “Well, it’s possible that there’s a lab leak, but if you look at the viruses that the NIH funded, and it was a very small grant, $120,000, $130,000 a year, granting to study bat viruses in a surveillance way to see what’s out there. If you look at those viruses and you look at the — what was done with the viruses, it would be essentially molecularly impossible for those viruses to turn into SARS-CoV-2 because they were so evolutionarily distant that — I can’t tell you what’s going on in all of China or in other things —“

TAPPER: “Right.”

FAUCI: “— but I can tell you for sure that if you look at the viruses that the NIH grant funded to study in a surveillance way, anybody who even has a peripheral understanding of evolutionary virology who tell you these viruses could not possibly turn into SARS-CoV-2. So when you talk about a leak, maybe there’s a lab leak, but it’s not with the viruses that the NIH was funding. That’s — almost certain that that’s the case.”