Betsy Combier, Editor

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Equipped with newly released diary entries by former U.S. infectious disease chief Dr. Anthony Fauci, (pictured above) U.S. senators and others said that what he told the public at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic was different from what he knew and thought privately.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., released more than a thousand pages of Fauci’s private COVID-era writings, providing a glimpse into Fauci’s thoughts on the pandemic response. On July 29, as senators questioned him on supposed discrepancies, Fauci took the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times.

We examined claims that said Fauci contradicted himself on issues of COVID-19’s origins, school closures and mask mandates. Fauci’s diary entries revealed that he deliberated the developing information, and that his private stances largely aligned with what he said publicly.

How the virus originated

What Paul said: “For years, Anthony Fauci has been the public face of saying this in all likelihood came from nature. He kept saying, ‘It’s the marketplace,’” Paul said. “He’s been saying that on television up until recently. But what we find is that what he was saying in public is different than what he was saying in private.”

Paul showed a compilation of interviews and public remarks in which Fauci mentioned the “wet market” in relation to the virus. Some of the earliest coronavirus patients had links to a seafood and live animal market, supporting the case for animal-to-person transmission.

What Fauci wrote: In a Jan. 26, 2020, entry,  Fauci wrote, “It now appears using (epidemiological) data and genomic data that the first infection was in early December and was not connected to the market.”

But Paul’s hearing comments omitted the rest of that entry. Fauci wrote that China initially said that there was no human-to-human transmission and all original cases were from the market, but “infections spread among people weeks before.”

In the same paragraph, Fauci was still deliberating a natural origin: “Now we know the market was not the source, it was the amplifier. Having said that, somewhere the virus jumped from animals to humans.”

Fauci’s diary entries show that in the following days, he discussed with scientists the possibility that the virus was “deliberately inserted” and accidentally or purposely released. On Feb. 1, 2020, he wrote that nine out of 11 scientists in a conference call believed “deliberate insertion was possible.”

What Fauci said publicly: In a Feb. 17, 2020, USA Today interview, Fauci said something similar to what he wrote in January 2020: “Almost certainly, somewhere, somehow a bat infected an intermediate host who infected a human.”

From April 2020 to May 2020, Fauci spoke against the lab leak theory. In an April 2020 White House press briefing, Fauci pointed to a study by evolutionary virologists that showed the mutations were “consistent with a jump of a species from an animal to a human.”

In May 2020, he said in a National Geographic interview that the evidence is “very, very strongly” leaning toward the conclusion that the virus could not have been engineered, and that it evolved in nature.

In an interview with PolitiFact a year later, Fauci supported continued investigation into what happened in China and the virus’s origin. “Certainly the people who’ve investigated say it likely was the emergence from an animal reservoir that then infected individuals, but it could have been something else. And we need to find that out,” he said.

School closures

What a senator cited: Sen. Ashley Moody, R-Fla., referred to a July 2022 The Hill interview in which Fauci was asked whether he would recommend locking down schools if he could do it all over again. Fauci answered, “First of all, I didn’t recommend locking anything down.” He said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is the agency that makes recommendations.

Moody said, “But now we have your diary, and it tells a very different story from the one you told the public.”

Moody cited Fauci’s March 15, 2020, journal entry about convincing then-New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to close the New York City schools.

What Fauci wrote: Fauci advised some state officials on whether to close or open schools. His entries generally show his position toward safely opening the schools.

• On March 9, 2020, Fauci wrote about advising New York’s then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to close schools in one area that had more cases than the rest of New York City.
• On March 16, 2020, Fauci wrote about guidelines reflecting his push for a more aggressive mitigation plan, including to “close schools where there is community spread.” He seemed to be referring to the President’s coronavirus guidelines released that day.
• A couple of times in May 2020, Fauci wrote that he did not oppose opening schools. On May 13, 2020, he wrote that, “They fed (Trump) that I said we should not open schools, when in fact, I said that we would not have a vaccine in time to vaccinate the students (mostly college) for the August/Fall semester.” He repeated that in another entry the next day.
• In June 2020, he wrote that then-North Carolina Gov. Ray Cooper asked his advice on whether to open charter schools in July, given a case uptick. Fauci recommended Cooper delay making a decision for two weeks.
• On Aug. 9, 2020, Fauci wrote: “Whether or not to open schools has been a major topic of discussion as we approach the school opening timetable. I have been saying consistent that we should have as a default position our attempt/intention to open schools.” He cited potential negative effects on children and parents. “HOWEVER, the primary consideration must be the health, safety and welfare of the children and the teachers, and the potential spreading to others… I have stated that one size does not fit all and decisions should be based on the level of infection in the community.”

What Fauci said publicly: Fauci’s Aug. 9, 2020, diary entry aligned with what he told Congress on July 31, 2020, that the default position would be to open the schools “as best as we possibly can” in terms of safety.

Use of masks

What social media posts said: A July 30 Facebook graphic put two quotes by Fauci side-by-side: The post said that on Feb. 28, 2020, Fauci wrote in his diary, “Masks are not really effective in preventing infection of the public,” a seeming contradiction of what it called his public April 3, 2020, statement that, “Everyone should be wearing masks. Masks are an important tool in our public health arsenal.”

What Fauci wrote: The quote in the Facebook graphic did not come from Fauci’s diary, but was paraphrased from a February 2020 email exchange between him and former Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell that was included in records released in 2021. He wrote: “Masks are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection. The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through the material.”

In Fauci’s diary, he wrote on March 31, 2020, that “we probably were too strong in saying masks do not work.”

On Feb. 11, 2021, Fauci mentioned a study showing “a cloth mask over a surgical mask actually gives a more complete fit and keeps out aerosols.” We did not find any entries showing he believed cloth masks were ineffective.

What Fauci said publicly: On April 3, 2020, the day the CDC recommended wearing masks in public, Fauci said, “If everybody does that, we’re each protecting each other, because the data is, it’s more efficient to prevent transmitting to others than it is to prevent transmission to yourself.”

In the same interview, he cautioned against hoarding masks since frontline healthcare workers needed them, and said people can use facial coverings that aren’t necessarily a “classical mask.”

OUR SOURCES