Dr. Fauci, the chief medical adviser to Biden, faced harsh criticism from Republicans due to his flip-flopping COVID positions last year.
The criticism against Fauci turned up this week after the release of thousands of emails collected through the Freedom of Information Act request. The emails revealed the communications made by the top doctor during the initial stages of the pandemic.
Fauci’s emails show that he said masks were not effective against COVID, then encouraged mask mandates.
His emails raise more concerns that he wasn’t being honest with the American people.
— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) June 5, 2021
After the virus outbreak in the country, Dr. Anthony Fauci, an infectious disease specialist, stated that wearing masks is not necessary, except when someone is already infected with the virus.
Then in an email exchange dated February 5, 2020, Dr. Fauci told Sylvia Burwell, former Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), that wearing a mask was not needed during her then-upcoming trip.
Fauci wrote in the email that masks are only for infected people. This prevents them from spreading the infection to others who are not infected instead of protecting uninfected individuals from contracting the virus.
Fauci: people were not advised to wear masks to “conserve very limited supply”
However, as the virus took off, the top health officials reversed his standing.
In an interview on June 2020, Dr. Fauci admitted with The Street that people were initially not advised to wear masks to conserve a limited supply for health care workers. However, he added that masks could protect you “to a certain degree.”
When Fauci was questioned why Americans were not required to wear a mask from the onset of the pandemic, he said that the reason is that there was a “very short supply” of masks.
He then added that they were “concerned for the public health community” and want to ensure protections for health care workers putting themselves in harm’s way to take care of infected people.
In January 2020, Fauci again found himself in deep trouble over what others see as a disregard of the origins of COVID-19.
Daszak thanked Fauci for his rejection of the lab leak theory
Peter Daszak, who was deeply involved both in Wuhan coronavirus research & in misleading the public about the likelihood of a lab leak, thanked Fauci for helping "dispel the myths" around COVID origins and blamed Fox News for targeting his grant. From the @JasonLeopold FOIA batch pic.twitter.com/LgloFVaFZX
— Sarah Westwood (@sarahcwestwood) June 1, 2021
As early as January 2020, emails received urged the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to look at the possibility that the virus did not occur naturally but rather resulted from a lab leak. Fauci argued that at that time, science does not support such a theory.
However, during the same time frame, Dr. Peter Daszak, the head of EcoHealth Alliance, wrote an email to Fauci thanking him for his rejection of the lab leak theory.
Things we learned from the #Fauci emails
👇🏼👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/sgZGYA0p2I
— Nicky Monreau (@NickyMonreau) June 4, 2021
Daszak wrote Fauci a letter praising him for publicly standing up and saying that scientific evidence supports the natural origins of the virus rather than a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
On Thursday, in an interview with CNN, Dr. Fauci said that people could misconstrue the email however they want.
He then claimed it was merely an email from a person thanking him for whatever he thought he said. Fauci added that he still thinks COVID originated naturally. However, he keeps an open mind that it might be a lab leak.
Read more: The Utter Fraudulence of Fauci Is Now Obvious