Fauci dismisses virus lab claims

DR ANTHONY Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told National Geographic it was unlikely the coronavirus pandemic somehow started in a Chinese lab, despite suggestions to the contrary by President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

“If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats… what’s out there now is very very strongly leaning towards this; (the virus) could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated,” Fauci said this week.

“A number of very qualified evolutionary biologists said everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates it evolved in nature and then jumped species.”

Fauci, 79, dismissed the conspiracy theory that the virus was brought into a lab by Chinese scientists, then somehow spun out of control.

“But that means it was in the wild to begin with,” he said.

“That’s why I don’t get what they’re talking about (and) why I don’t spend a lot of time going in on this circular argument.” Fauci said theories were always in circulation but he had a small team that decided which matters deserved his attention.

The expert immunologist compared trying to consume all of the information about the pandemic to “drinking from a fire hydrant”.

Nearly 1.2 million Americans have been infected with coronavirus.

Fewer than 84 000 people in China have tested positive.