Covid cover-up: Anthony Fauci attempts to narrow what would count as China lab leak

Dr Fauci, who headed up America’s coronavirus response as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was also accused of funding risky research in China after the United States supported scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

WIV scientists were collecting bat viruses to discover how they could evolve to infect humans.

However, virologists in Hubei’s capital have been accused of operating under laxed biosecurity conditions.

Such conditions could allow rare viruses to leak out into densely populated areas from remote caves.

Dr Fauci told The New York Times an incident like this would not constitute a lab leak.

He said: “All the intelligence groups agree that this was not an engineered virus.

“And if it’s not an engineered virus, what actually leaked from the lab?

“If it wasn’t an engineered virus, somebody went out into the field, got infected, came back to the lab and then spread it out to other people.

“That ain’t a lab leak, strictly speaking. That’s a natural occurrence.”

Dr Fauci, who was accused by Trump of “putting millions of lives at risk”, also rejected criticisms about shutting schools.

He said: “Show me a school that I shut down and show me a factory that I shut down. Never. I never did.”

A recent 302-page Senate report alleged the coronavirus pandemic was likely caused by a “lab leak”.

The report, obtained by Axios, claimed: “The preponderance of information affirms the plausibility of a research-related incident that was likely unintentional resulting from failures of biosafety containment during vaccine-related research.”

US President Joe Biden also announced all intelligence documentation held in Washington about the virus would be made public.

The United States recorded 1,120,529 Covid-related deaths, statistics compiled by the World Health Organisation has shown.