Here We Go: This Is What Fauci Says Is To Blame For America's Pandemic Response...

He explained that the rapidly changing evidence during the pandemic made it difficult for public health officials to provide accurate guidance consistently.

"Communication in pandemics is difficult under the best of circumstances," Fauci told the outlet. "What has been so troubling to me as a health official is when you are dealing with a moving target, the evidence is evolving and new data becomes available, but you get so many different people with their own sets of data that are not real data, but even in a perfect world, it would not be easy."

Dr. Fauci pointed to the intensity of the "culture wars" as a factor that impacted public health guidance. He admitted that his initial stance on masks, where he advised against their use, contributed to confusion and skepticism.

When asked if his changing position on covers resulted in vaccine skepticism, Fauci said he was "uncertain" but acknowledged that it fueled the culture wars.

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"When it comes to masking, I don't know," Fauci said. "But I do know that the culture wars have been really, really tough from a public health standpoint. Ultimately, an epidemiologist sees it as an epidemiological phenomenon. An economist sees it from an economic standpoint. And I see it from somebody in bed dying."

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Regarding the COVID-19 vaccine, Dr. Fauci suggested that America's independent nature fostered skepticism toward public health guidance. "I think, almost paradoxically, you had people who were on the fence about getting vaccinated thinking, 'Why are they forcing me to do this?'" Fauci said. "And that sometimes beautiful independent streak in our country becomes counterproductive."

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In his conversation with The New York Times, Dr. Fauci conceded that COVID-19 mandates contributed to anti-vaccine sentiments in the United States. However, he continues to stand by his public health recommendations.

When questioned about mandates that forced schools and businesses to close, Dr. Fauci grew defensive, arguing that he never directly shut down any institutions. Instead, he maintained that he provided public health recommendations aligned with the CDC, and state and local leaders made decisions based on those guidelines.

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"Show me a school that I shut down and show me a factory that I shut down. Never. I never did," Fauci said. "I gave a public health recommendation that echoed the CDC's recommendation, and people made a decision based on that. But I never criticized the people who had to make the decisions one way or the other."

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On the highly debated topic of the "Lab Leak Theory," Dr. Fauci defended his belief that COVID-19 originated from a Wuhan wet market, citing more substantial evidence supporting this hypothesis. Fauci emphasized that he didn't dismiss the Lab Leak Theory but felt that the evidence he gathered pointed against it.

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"I feel that until you have a definitive proof of one or the other, it is essential to have an open mind," Fauci said. "But I want to highlight the difference between possible and probable. If you look at what's possible, I absolutely keep an open mind until we get a definitive proof of one versus the other."

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He continued, "All of the intelligence groups agree that this was not an engineered virus. And if it's not an engineered virus, what actually leaked from the lab? If it wasn't an engineered virus, somebody went out into the field, got infected, came back to the lab and then spread it out to other people. That ain't a lab leak, strictly speaking. That's a natural occurrence."

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During the interview, The Times' David Wallace-Wells questioned Fauci about gain-of-function research and the NIH's possible role in the Coronavirus outbreak, considering that the institute funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab.

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Wallace-Wells referred to the "P3CO" framework under which the NIH resumed gain-of-function of the financing research after a three-year safety review, which held research involving infectious and dangerous pathogens to a higher level of scrutiny.

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Fauci maintained that the idea of a lab leak was improbable and that the viruses handled in the lab did not match the virus responsible for the pandemic. He argued that the NIH's research funding should not be linked to liability for a potential lab leak. "It had nothing to do with what we did, because the viruses were unable to be made into SARS-CoV-2," Fauci said.

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Not entirely convinced by Dr. Fauci's responses, Wallace-Wells pressed him further on the NIH's involvement, leading to a heated exchange.

"I'm not suggesting that the work described in that particular EcoHealth grant led to the pandemic. But we know that there was a lot of other work being done in Wuhan," Wallace-Wells said to Fauci.

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"And if I were you, and I was going to sleep every night thinking that there was even some very small chance that the virus came from a laboratory doing the kinds of research that I had helped promote and fund over the last few decades, I think that might weigh on me a bit, even if I was absolutely sure I had done everything I had done with the best intentions."

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Fauci said, "Now you're saying things that are a bit troublesome to me. That I need to go to bed tonight worrying that NIH-funded research was responsible for pandemic origins." "I'm not saying you need to do anything," Wallace-Wells said. "I'm putting myself in your shoes and telling you what I think it would mean to me to really believe there's a chance, even a very small one, that this pandemic was the result of a lab leak."

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"Well, I sleep fine. I sleep fine," Fauci said. "And remember, this work was done in order to be able to help prepare us for the next outbreak. This work was not conceived by me as I was having my omelet in the morning. It is a grant that was put before peer review of independent scientists whose main role is to try to get data to protect the health and safety of the American public and the world."

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Dr. Fauci has been a controversial figure throughout the Coronavirus pandemic since its beginning in 2020, not only in the United States but also globally.

Recently, a report from the U.S. Department of Energy brought the "lab leak theory" back into the spotlight when it stated that a leak was plausible, albeit with "low confidence." It was also revealed that Dr. Fauci prompted the drafting of 'Proximal Origins' to counter the lab leak theory.