Fauci on Covid lab leak theory: ‘I have a completely open mind’

“Even when there is nothing to hide, they act suspiciously and not transparently,” Fauci said of the Chinese government.

A report this fall from Vanity Fair and ProPublica, which said the Wuhan Institute of Virology was dealing with an unspecified emergency at the time Covid-19 began, brought a debate back to the fore over whether the virus could come from a laboratory.

Speaking on CBS’ “Face the Nation” in a separate interview on Sunday, Fauci said he would like to know “all the details of what happened with the original people who got infected.”

In “Meet the Press”, he also criticized the government’s strict and continued response to Covid-19, which has sparked recent protests among the population in China.

“Their approach has been very, very stern and quite drastic in sorts of stoppages with no apparent purpose,” Fauci told host Chuck Todd.

Ashish Jha, the White House’s Covid-19 response coordinator, added on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday that “lockdown and zero Covid are going to be very difficult to sustain.”

Chinese government officials, under President Xi Jinping, have adopted a “zero Covid” policy against the disease, leading to widespread lockdowns and travel restrictions in recent days.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that he did not yet know if the protests would pose a real threat to the leadership of Xi.

“These dictators unfortunately have quite sophisticated ways to stay in power,” Murphy said.