What did Dr Fauci say about Covid-19?
DR ANTHONY FAUCI tested positive for Covid-19 on June 15, 2022, and is isolating at home.
Fauci has been the leading advisor since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, advising both former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden.
When did Dr Anthony Fauci test positive for Covid-19?
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases confirmed that Dr Anthony Fauci, 81, tested positive for Covid-19 on June 15, 2022.
He has received the Covid-19 vaccine and has been boosted twice and is reportedly experiencing minor symptoms and is isolating at his home.
Fauci tested positive after taking a rapid antigen test and will continue to work from home until he tests negative.
The institute said Fauci had not been in contact with other White House officials prior to testing positive.
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Fauci has urged the nation to be cautious throughout the pandemic and has personally abstained from attending events for his own personal safety.
In April 2022, Fauci chose to not attend the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner after considering the risk the event could pose to him.
He told at the time: “Each of us, in our own personal way, has to make an assessment of what risk you’re willing to accept about getting infected.
“In general, the risk is low, but I made a personal assessment. I’m 81 years old, and if I get infected, I have a much higher risk.”
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What has Dr Anthony Fauci said about Covid-19?
At the time the virus was found in the US, there was little information on its nature and in May 2020, Fauci said there was "no scientific evidence" that Covid-19 was created in a lab.
He told : "If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what's out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated.
"Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species."
A year into the pandemic, Fauci appeared to have changed his stance claiming that he was "not convinced" that Covid-19 is a naturally occurring virus.
When asked if he believed the coronavirus developed naturally, Fauci said: "No actually. I am not convinced about that. I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we continue to find out to the best of our ability what happened.
"Certainly, the people who investigated it say it likely was the emergence from an animal reservoir that then infected individuals, but it could have been something else, and we need to find that out."
"So, you know, that’s the reason why I said I’m perfectly in favor of any investigation that looks into the origin of the virus."
What do we know about the origins of Covid-19 so far?
The World Health Organization (WHO) says the theory that the coronavirus escaped from a lab needs "further investigating,"
A report by the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO) suggests an alternative theory that the virus has a zoonotic origin, meaning it transferred from animals to humans.
Marietjie Venter, chair of the WHO team and a virologist at the University of Pretoria in South Africa told the outlet before the report was published: “At this point, the strongest evidence is still around zoonotic transmission.
“However, the precursor viruses that have been identified in bats are definitely not close enough to be the virus that spilled over into humans.”
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The WHO hopes to learn how to avoid similar outbreaks in the future by uncovering how the Covid-19 pandemic began.
Chinese officials have adamantly denied claims that the virus was leaked at the Wuhan Institute of Virology or another research institute that was studying coronaviruses at the time.