Think how much time was wasted and lives lost because they didn't come clean about the source.
Remember the obsessive hand sanitizing and the cleaning of tabletops? Totally worthless with regards to covid-19 and they let it go on and on. And Fauci telling Americans in January 2020 (from Politifact):
....On Jan. 21 - the day the first covid-19 case in the U.S. was confirmed - Fauci appeared on conservative Newsmax TV. "Bottom line, we don’t have to worry about this one, right?" asked Greg Kelly, the host.
Fauci said, "Obviously, you need to take it seriously and do the kind of things the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and the Department of Homeland Security is doing. But this is not a major threat to the people of the United States and this is not something that the citizens of the United States right now should be worried about."
So Fauci, in a qualified response said, don't worry "right now;" "you need to take it seriously;" and although "this is not a major threat," keep an ear open to the CDC and Homeland Security.
Catsimatidis interview
On Jan. 26, Fauci gave an interview to John Catsimatidis, a syndicated radio host in New York. "What can you tell the American people about what’s been going on?" Catsimatidis asked. "Should they be scared?"
"I don’t think so," Fauci said. "The American people should not be worried or frightened by this. It’s a very, very low risk to the United States, but it’s something we, as public health officials, need to take very seriously."....
Politifact did their factcheck on April 14, 2020. Now almost two years later we know Fauci knew exactly what the world was facing at the time he said it was "a very, very low risk"
From The Telegraph via Yahoo News, January 11, 2011:
Leading British and US scientists thought it was likely that Covid accidentally leaked from a laboratory but were concerned that further debate would harm science in China, emails show.
An email from Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, on February 2 2020 said that “a likely explanation” was that Covid had rapidly evolved from a Sars-like virus inside human tissue in a low-security lab.
The email, to Dr Anthony Fauci and Dr Francis Collins of the US National Institutes of Health, went on to say that such evolution may have “accidentally created a virus primed for rapid transmission between humans”.
But a leading scientist told Sir Jeremy that “further debate would do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular”. Dr Collins, the former director of the US National Institutes of Health, warned it could damage “international harmony”.
Viscount Ridley, co-author of Viral: the search for the origin of Covid, said: “These emails show a lamentable lack of openness and transparency among Western scientists who appear to have been more interested in shutting down a hypothesis they thought was very plausible, for political reasons.”
In the emails, Sir Jeremy said that other scientists also believed the virus could not have evolved naturally. One such scientist was Professor Mike Farzan, of Scripps Research, the expert who discovered how the original Sars virus binds to human cells.
Scientists were particularly concerned by a part of Covid-19 called the furin cleavage site, a section of the spike protein which helps it enter cells and makes it so infectious to humans.
Summarising Professor Farzan’s concerns in an email, Sir Jeremy said: “He is bothered by the furin site and has a hard time (to) explain that as an event outside the lab, though there are possible ways in nature but highly unlikely.
“I think this becomes a question of how do you put all this together, whether you believe in this series of coincidences, what you know of the lab in Wuhan, how much could be in nature - accidental release or natural event? I am 70:30 or 60:40.”
Later emails showed that by February 4, Sir Jeremy had revised his estimate of a laboratory leak to 50:50, while Professor Eddie Holmes, of the University of Sydney, gave a 60:40 estimate in favour of an accidental release.
The emails also show that Bob Garry, of the University of Texas, was unconvinced that Covid-19 emerged naturally.
“I just can’t figure out how this gets accomplished in nature,” he said.
Professor Andrew Rambaut, from the University of Edinburgh, also said that furin cleavage site “strikes me as unusual”.
He added: “I think the only people with sufficient information or access to samples to address it would be the teams working in Wuhan.”
The new details came to light after members of the US Republican House Oversight Committee were granted access to the documents, after complaining that their content had been heavily redacted when released under Freedom of Information requests.
The emails were sent in response to a teleconference between 12 scientists including Sir Patrick Vallance, the Government's chief scientific adviser, on February 1.
The emails show that by February 2 2020, scientists were already trying to shut down the debate into the laboratory leak theory.
An email from Dr Ron Fouchier to Sir Jeremy said: “Further debate about such accusations would unnecessarily distract top researchers from their active duties and do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular.”....
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