Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the top public health officials in the US during the COVID-19 pandemic, told House lawmakers on Tuesday that he is “not convinced” that children are experiencing learning loss as a result of school closures that his agency supports.
The former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) made the stunning admission on the second and final day of a 14-hour closed-door interview with the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, according to two of its members.
“He said he’s still not convinced that there’s a learning loss — in his view, that’s still open to discussion,” Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas), who sat on the panel, told The Post.
Dr. Anthony Fauci told House lawmakers on Tuesday that he is “not convinced” that children are experiencing learning losses because of school closures that his agency supports. AP Fauci has repeatedly called for social distancing, face coverings and strict lockdowns but has often denied responsibility for the fallout. AP
“I think [if] you ask any parent, they’ll tell you it’s a huge impact on their child’s development,” added Cloud.
A member of former President Donald Trump’s White House Coronavirus Task Force and chief medical adviser to President Biden before retiring at the end of 2022, Fauci has repeatedly called for strict social distancing, masks and coverings but has often denied responsibility for the fallout.
“Show me the schools I closed and show me the factories I closed. never. I never did,” he told The New York Times Magazine in April 2023, when he was asked about his support for “heavy-handed” policies.
“I think [if] you ask any parent, they’ll tell you it’s a huge impact on their child’s development,” Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) told The Post. CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images
“I give public health recommendations that echo CDC recommendations, and people make decisions based on that,” he said. “But I never criticize people who have to make a decision one way or the other.”
Cloud said Fauci had shown “an uncanny ability to either forget what happened or then find a way to avoid any responsibility for the influence that was there,” during his marathon session.
“They wash their hands of any responsibility, saying, ‘Oh, that decision is made by the school district.’ But school districts know, if you don’t follow the guidance that comes out of the federal government, you open yourself up to legal action,” Cloud added.
The US Department of Education released statistics in September 2022 showing that nine-year-olds’ reading scores had plunged to their lowest level in 30 years and math scores fell for the first time in half a century. James Keivom
The US Department of Education released statistics in September 2022 that showed reading scores among nine-year-olds had declined over the course of the pandemic to a 30-year low, while math scores fell for the first time in half a century. Tracking.
Tensions also rose over Fauci’s refusal to discuss his role in funding gain-of-function research on the bat coronavirus in Wuhan, China, with members of the House COVID panel telling reporters that the former NIAID doctor continued to use alternative definitions of the term to avoid discussion. .
“I think he’s playing semantics with that term, and I think it’s clear that the Wuhan lab is conducting gain-of-function research,” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), another panelist, told The Post.
House COVID Select Subcommittee Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) told reporters that determining whether SARS-CoV-2 leaked from a lab remains a concern of his panel. Getty Images
“I mentioned earlier today to somebody that it’s almost like Bill Clinton is arguing about what it is,” Cloud said of Fauci’s evasion.
“They’re looking for different definitions, which is why even though this is happening, you have one definition on the NIH website, yet Fauci and NIAID are operating under different definitions when they talk about it,” Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) said.
Griffith added that he believed that Fauci’s testimony at the previous congress was true “because there are different types of functional gains and these have been explained.”
The Department of Energy and the FBI have determined that a lab leak is the “most likely” explanation for COVID-19, while the CIA has been unable to reach a consensus. AFP via Getty Images
Flanked by Capitol Police officers and his attorney, Fauci declined to speak to reporters as he entered the hearing room Tuesday morning, after claiming the day before that he “didn’t remember” answering more than 100 questions from committee members.
Fauci ignored The Post’s request for comment on his repeated denials that he was withdrawing a pause to fund gain-of-function research in Wuhan — and his subsequent attempts to cover it up and avoid accountability before Congress.
His attorneys — two of whom are retained privately and two provided by the federal government — responded to The Post’s request for an opportunity to ask questions: “No questions, no answers.”
Fauci ignored The Post’s request for comment on his repeated denials that he revoked a funding pause to approve functional gain research in Wuhan — and his attempts to cover it up. Getty Images
House COVID Select Subcommittee Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) told reporters that determining whether SARS-CoV-2 leaked from a lab or jumped naturally from animals to humans remains a concern for him and other panel members and that Fauci has stated “open mind” to both theories.
“I had the opportunity to get into the science with Dr. Fauci, comparing nature versus what might be made in a lab, all that stuff,” Wenstrup said. “And I think it’s really eye-opening that we need more discussion on this, and he agrees with that. So I think that’s a positive.”
“After he spent a lot of time pressing it, he said there was a possibility,” Malliotakis said. “And he admitted that we need cooperation from the Chinese to investigate the lab leak theory further.”
Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) told reporters that the transcribed interview “helped us get the facts and details” while saying the decision to question Fauci was “quite political.” Getty Images
House COVID Subcommittee Ranking Member Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.) exited the hearing room through a back entrance to avoid speaking to the press but issued scathing remarks at a hearing late Monday night, blasting the Republican effort as a “politically-driven. fishing expedition.”
He did not attend any part of Monday’s hearing, but Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), another member of the panel, told reporters that the transcribed interview had “helped us get the facts and details” while saying the decision to question Fauci was “quite political.”
The Department of Energy and the FBI have determined that a lab leak is the “most likely” explanation for COVID-19, while other intelligence agencies such as the CIA have been unable to reach a consensus.
Fauci also coordinated with NIH Director Francis Collins to silence dissent about the virus potentially leaking from a Chinese lab. AP
Internal government records and Fauci’s personal emails show he was aware of potentially dangerous experiments on viruses like SARS that took place from 2014 to 2019 – supported by a subgrant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to the Manhattan-based EcoHealth Alliance.
Further records obtained by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic also show the former NIAID director coordinated with then-NIH Director Francis Collins to silence dissent about the virus potentially leaking from a Chinese lab.
In a Feb. 1 2020, emailFauci expressed concern that researchers at Wuhan University, which also received US grant money, “are known to have worked on gain-of-function experiments to determine the molecular mechanisms associated with bat viruses adapting to human infection.”
Fauci told the committee that he should not have stated as a “fact” in his email that gain-of-function experiments were being conducted in Wuhan.
Dr. Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, told The Post that “Fauci repeatedly and flagrantly violated US government policies put in place to protect the public from laboratory-produced epidemics.”
“Fauci trying to deny he violated US government policy by claiming he prefers a different definition of ‘functional gain’ and enhanced pandemic pathogen potential is equivalent — exactly the same — to terrorists trying to deny he violated federal law by claiming he prefer a different definition of ‘terrorism,'” Ebright said.
Documents obtained by the House COVID panel have also revealed that Fauci’s NIAID addressed a government-wide pause in for-profit research between 2014 and 2017 to revive experiments in Wuhan.
“He also admitted today that they didn’t do oversight … they didn’t have security checks,” Malliotakis said of Fauci’s time at NIAID. “Why did you sign millions of dollars [worth of grants] without proper vetting of this organization or scrutiny of national security concerns?
“They are abdicating their responsibility to ensure that this funding is used properly and safely,” he added.
Last September, the Department of Health and Human Services barred the Wuhan Institute of Virology from receiving any further US funding.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
