Fauci emails point to February 2020 phone call as possible pivot for lab-leak theory

Recently released government emails from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's infectious disease chief, point to an early February 2020 phone call as a possible pivotal juncture for the "lab-leak" hypothesis of COVID-19's origin, a theory that was roundly discounted last year but is now rapidly gaining momentum. 

The thousands of pages of emails, obtained via Freedom of Information Act requests by both Buzzfeed and the Washington Post, have made headlines this week for their detailed glimpse into the management of the earliest days of the pandemic in the U.S., including the scrambling of federal officials to adequately size up the danger of the virus and the growing concerns from scientific experts and lay citizens over COVID-19's threat. 

Fauci, the longtime director of the federal National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is shown in the emails juggling rapidly shifting responsibilities, conferring with fellow infectious disease experts while offering advice to average citizens and managing a growing portfolio of media appearances. 

Yet the emails have also offered glimpses into Fauci's possible concerns in the earliest days of the worldwide outbreak: In early February of last year, for instance, he was urgently conferring with colleagues on the topic of "gain-of-function" research — experiments designed to enhance the pathogenicity of viruses to study their potential infectiousness in human cells — suggesting that, at least at the outset of the pandemic, Fauci and others may have harbored acute concerns that the virus could be linked to such experiments. 

Also in the emails is evidence of a conference call that occurred in early February that consisted of a heavyweight lineup of infectious disease experts apparently discussing, at least in part, a possible human-engineered origin of the virus. That discussion involved several individuals who would later issue a prominent and widely cited smackdown of the lab-leak origin theory of COVID-19. 

Discussion conducted "in total confidence," details "not to be shared"

The emails show that, the night prior to the call on Jan. 31, Fauci had been contacted by Kristian Andersen, an immunology and microbiology professor at the Scripps Research Institute. Andersen shared with Fauci his and his colleagues' earliest assessments of the "phylogenetic analyses" they had performed on the SARS-Cov-2 virus. 

Noting that the virus looked "totally normal" on first glance, Andersen wrote: "The unusual features of the virus make up a really small part of the genome (<0.1%) so one has to look really closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features (potentially) look engineered."

"I should mention that after discussions earlier today, Eddie, Bob, Mike, and myself all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory," Andersen continued, adding that the team would have to "look at this much more closely and there are still further analyses to be done, so those opinions could still change."

Subsequent emails dated Feb. 1 show a "teleconference" being organized by Jeremy Farrar, the director of Wellcome, a global charity that boasts it supports science to solve urgent health challenges. Farrar in the email warns that "information and discussion" in the call "is shared in total confidence and not to be shared until agreement on next steps."