Chinese media attacks Dr Fauci for ‘degenerate morality’ for calling for Wuhan lab investigation

State-controlled news outlet irked by chief medical adviser’s support for further investigation into origins of Covid

Anthony Fauci has come under attack from Chinese state media for saying he was in “favour” of investigating the origins of Covid in Wuhan, China.

According to two recent articles in the Global Times, a state-run media outlet, Dr Fauci was called “degenerate” for calling for further investigations into the origins of Covid in Wuhan.

“US elites degenerate further in morality, and Fauci is one of them,” an op-ed by Global Time’s editor-in-chief, Hu Xijin, was titled in recent days, CNN reported.

In another article, the US chief medical adviser and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), was accused of “betraying” Chinese scientists in Wuhan.

It follows comments from Dr Fauci in front of a congressional committee on 11 May, and interviews with US media outlets, in which he said he favoured further investigations into Covid and Wuhan’s institute of virology.

On 11 May, Dr Fauci forcefully denied allegations from Republican senators that US federal agencies funded dangerous research at the virology institute in Wuhan – claims that are at the centre of a theory about Covid originating in the lab.

“I do not have any accounting of what the Chinese may have done, and I’m fully in favour of any further investigation of what went on in China,” Dr Fauci told senators Rand Paul and Roger Marshall.

And in an interview with PolitiFact managing editor Katie Sanders on 11 May, the NIAID director went on to say that he favoured investigating the Wuhan Institute of Virology "to find out to the best of our ability what happened”.

"Certainly, the people who investigated it say it likely was the emergence from an animal reservoir that then infected individuals,” Dr Fauci said at a fact checking conference, “ but it could have been something else, and we need to find that out.”

“So, you know, that's the reason why I said I'm perfectly in favour of any investigation that looks into the origin of the virus."

Dr Fauci also told CBS News correspondent Weijia Jiang in recent days that he continued to believe it "highly likely” that Covid was from natural origins – and not a lab.

According to US officials, staff at the institute became ill in November 2019 “with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness,” weeks before China informed the World Health Organisation (WHO) of Covid.

Following that initial inquiry by the Trump administration, the US state department said on Tuesday it was closing an inquiry into Wuhan’s virology institute and the origins of Covid, although it was continuing “to look into the Covid origins issue”, reported CNN.