Newly released emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request show Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House’s chief coronavirus adviser, agreed to “work together” with a Chinese official when the pandemic first began.
In the email correspondence, George Gao, the director of the Chinese Communist Party’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, communicated with Fauci about how the two countries should respond to the pandemic.
“Let’s work together to get the virus out of the earth,” Gao wrote.
He also shared a Science magazine article in which he had been quoted as saying the U.S. was making a “big mistake” for not requiring masks.
“I saw the Science interview, how could I say such a word ‘big mistake’ about others? That was the journalist’s wording. Hope you understand,” Gao said to Fauci.
Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases—and then-spokesman of former president Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force—responded: “I understand completely. No problem. We will get through this together.”
In a different email correspondence, a key figure in the coronavirus research that took place in China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology thanked Fauci for dismissing the theory that COVID-19 escaped from the lab.
Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, a research group that secured federal grants to fund coronavirus research in Wuhan before the pandemic, wrote to Fauci “to say a personal thank you on behalf of our staff and collaborators” after Fauci dismissed the theory during a press conference.
“From my perspective, your comments are brave, and coming from your trusted voice, will help dispel the myths being spun around the virus’ origins,” Daszak wrote.
Fauci replied and thanked Daszak for the “kind note.”
Peter Daszak, who was deeply involved both in Wuhan coronavirus research & in misleading the public about the likelihood of a lab leak, thanked Fauci for helping “dispel the myths” around COVID origins and blamed Fox News for targeting his grant. From the @JasonLeopold FOIA batch pic.twitter.com/LgloFVaFZX
— Sarah Westwood (@sarahcwestwood) June 1, 2021
