Dr Anthony Fauci has said that he has an “open mind” about the origins of the Covid-19 virus.
The outgoing director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease said on NBC’s “Meet The Press” on Sunday: “I have a completely open mind about that, despite people saying that I don’t.”
He was asked about the theory that the virus may have originated in a laboratory in China.
He said that a group of international, respected virologists had written that strong evidence shows the virus jumped from animals to humans, but said it “hasn’t been definitively proven”.
“Even when there’s nothing to hide, they [Chinese government] act in a suspicious, non-transparent way,” he said.
According to a report from Vanity Fair and ProPublica, published in October, the Wuhan Institute of Virology dealt with an unspecified emergency at the time Covid-19 began.
This has reignited the debate about whether the virus might have come from a lab.
In a separate interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Dr Fauci said that he would like to “all of the details of what went on with the original people who were infected”.
He also criticised the Chinese government’s zero-Covid policy which is facing protests in the country in recent days on NBC.
China has continued with its policy of strict lockdowns, mass testing despite countries across the world dialing down pandemic restrictions to enable populations to live with the virus.
“Their [Chinese government] approach has been very, very severe and rather draconian in the kinds of shutdowns without a seeming purpose,” he said to host Chuck Todd.
Last week chaotic scenes were witnessed during Dr Fauci’s final press conference when a reporter began shouting over his colleagues and demanding that White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre take a question about the origins of Covid-19.
