Covid origins mystery gets new twist after Fauci adviser guilty plea | Gravitas
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Covid origins mystery gets new twist after Fauci adviser guilty plea Photograph: (Credit: AFP)
Former Fauci adviser Dr David Morens has pleaded guilty to conspiring to conceal federal records regarding COVID-19 research grants and the Wuhan lab. Learn how his personal email scheme has reignited scrutiny over pandemic origins.
The mystery surrounding the origins of COVID-19 has taken a new turn. A former senior adviser to Dr Anthony Fauci has admitted to helping conceal US federal records tied to coronavirus research, raising questions about what officials knew, what records were kept, and how much the public was told. Dr David Morens pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the US government. Prosecutors say he used a personal email account to get around federal records laws while working at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Morens now faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison. A US federal judge in Maryland is scheduled to sentence him on November 12.
The case centers on records connected to COVID-19 research grants. Prosecutors allege Morens concealed or destroyed communications, including discussions about efforts to restore a controversial grant involving bat coronavirus research. That grant had been cancelled by the US National Institutes of Health after concerns emerged over research involving a laboratory in Wuhan, China. A company receiving the US federal grant had allegedly provided a sub-award to that China-based laboratory. Investigators also say Morens agreed to help revive the grant and push back against claims that the pandemic began with a laboratory leak. Morens had previously denied trying to evade US federal transparency requirements through his personal email.
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Although Fauci has not been charged in this case, it has, however, intensified scrutiny on him. During a US Congressional hearing in July, Fauci repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment rights. And just last week, he declined to appear voluntarily before another US Senate panel after Republicans voted to hold him in contempt of Congress.
But the central question remains unanswered: How did COVID-19 begin? US intelligence agencies remain divided. The FBI and CIA have assessed a laboratory leak as likely, although the CIA expressed low confidence in its conclusion.
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Other US intelligence agencies and the US National Intelligence Council believe that coronavirus most likely emerged via natural transmission from some animal. China has rejected the laboratory-leak theory. Earlier this month, former White House COVID-19 response coordinator Dr Ashish Jha publicly said he believes a lab leak is the more likely explanation. Last year, the World Health Organization had said that all hypotheses on how the pandemic began remain open, adding that, pending further data, the origin of COVID and how it spreads remains elusive.
So, while Morens' guilty plea does not resolve the origin of COVID-19, it appears to have opened another chapter behind the pandemic's beginnings.
