Fauci says that the unvaccinated are responsible for 200,000 to 300,000 more COVID deaths

On Monday, Dr Anthony Fauci, the former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testified before the House Oversight Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

The hearing lasted just over three hours, but with the number of questions that the public has about COVID-19's origins, the science behind the closures and mask mandates, the safety of the vaccine, and the process behind "Operation Warp Speed" the hearing could have been three days, not three hours.

Dr. Fauci maintained that the vaccine saved lives.

"Vaccines save lives," Fauci said. "It is very, very clear that vaccines have saved hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions worldwide. In the beginning, it clearly prevented infection in a certain percentage of people but the durability of its ability to prevent infection was not long. It was measured in months."

"Peter Hotez has done an analysis of this and shows in people who refuse to get vaccinations for any of a variety of reasons are probably responsible for an additional 200,000 to 300,000 deaths in this country," Fauci testified

Fauci was asked about his comment justifying vaccine mandates made while speaking to author Michael Specter for his audiobook, Fauci.

"It's been proven that when you make it difficult for people in their lives, they lose their ideological b*lls**t, and they get vaccinated," Fauci told Specter.

After the recording is played, Fauci was asked if all objections to the COVID-19 vaccine are "ideological b*lls**t?"

Fauci replied, "No they're not, and that's not what I was referring to."

At the release of the vaccine, public health authorities claimed the vaccines were 95% effective.

Fauci was asked whether the vaccines actually stopped the virus from spreading.

"That is a complicated issue," Fauci answered. "Because in the beginning, the first iteration of the vaccines did have an effect, not 100 percent, not a high effect, they did prevent infection and subsequently obviously transmission. However, it's important to point out, something that we did not know early on that became evident as the months went by, is that the durability of protection against infection and hence, transmission, was relatively limited."

"Whereas the duration of protection against severe disease, hospitalization and deaths, was more prolonged," Fauci claimed. "We did not know that in the beginning."

Fauci denied allegations that he attempted to suppress the theory that the COVID-19 pandemic originated from a lab leak in Wuhan, China. Fauci acknowledge that he was informed of the theory that the virus had been genetically manipulated in a lab on January 31, 2020.

On that date, before the first American had died from COVID, he "was informed through phone calls with Jeremy Farrar, then director of the Wellcome Trust in the UK, and then with Kristian Anderson, a highly regarded scientist at Scripps Research Institute, that they and Eddie Holmes, a world-class evolutionary biologist from Australia, were concerned that the genomic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 suggested that the virus could have been manipulated in a lab."

Fauci said that he participated in a conference call "with about a dozen international virologists to discuss this possibility versus a spillover from an animal reservoir."

Fauci said that the discussion was "lively with arguments for both possibilities."

"It was decided that several participants would more carefully examine the genomic sequence after this further examination," Fauci testified. "Several who at first were concerned about lab manipulation became convinced that the virus was not deliberately manipulated. They concluded that the most likely scenario was the spillover from an animal reservoir, although they still kept an open mind. They appropriately published their opinion in the peer-reviewed literature."

Fauci denied being a part of a coverup even though none of this was revealed to the public at the time or in the months that followed as the death counts globally and in the U.S. began rising.

"The accusation being circulated that I influenced these scientists to change their minds by bribing them with millions of dollars in grant money is absolutely false and simply preposterous," Fauci testified.

"Mask mandates for children under the age of five? There's scientific evidence supporting that?" Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) asked.

"There was no study that did masks on kids before," Fauci admitted.

"You couldn't do the study," Fauci added. "You had to respond to an epidemic that was killing 4 to 5,000 Americans a day."

Fauci passed the blame on to the CDC's six-feet distancing rule.

"The CDC was responsible for those kinds of guidelines for schools, not me," Fauci said. "So when I said that, it just appeared. It appeared. Was there any science behind it? What I meant by no science behind it is that there wasn't a controlled trial. That said, compare six foot with three feet with ten feet. So there wasn't that scientific evaluation of it."

Fauci admitted that the six foot recommendation did not do much to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

"What I believe the CDC used for their reason to say six feet is that studies years ago showed that when you're dealing with droplets, which at the time that the CDC made that recommendation, it was felt that the transmission was primarily through droplet, not aerosol, which is incorrect because we know now aerosol does play a role," Fauci said. "That's the reason why they did it. It had little to do with me since I didn't make the recommendation."

Prior to his public testimony he testified previously before the committee in a closed session.

Dr. Fauci testified that he did not recall any supporting evidence for masking children.

The Majority Counsel asked Fauci if he had seen any study supporting masking of school children.

"You know, I might have, Mitch, but I don't recall specifically that I did," Fauci answered. "I might have."

Majority Counsel: "Since the - there's been a lot of studies that have come out since the pandemic started, but specifically on this there have been significant on kind of like the learning loss and speech and development issues that have been associated with particularly young children wearing masks while they're growing up. They can't see their teacher talk and can't learn how to form words. Have you followed any of those studies?"

Dr. Fauci: "No. But I believe that there are a lot of conflicting studies too, that there are those that say, yes, there is an impact, and there are those that say there's not. I still think that's up in the air."

Majority Counsel: "Did you agree with President Trump's decision to restrict travel from China?"

Dr. Fauci: "I did, and I said there were caveats to restrictions. I agreed with it, but I said we have to be careful because sometimes when you do restrictions they have negative consequences in that you don't have open access to help or even information. But fundamentally, I agreed at that time, since we had almost no infections that we knew of in our country, that at least a temporary restriction would be important."

Majority Counsel: "Did you also agree with the EU travel restriction?"

Dr. Fauci: "I agreed with the suggestion that that be done, yes."

Majority Counsel: "Did you agree with the U.K. travel restriction?"

Dr. Fauci: "Yes, I did."

The Wuhan virology lab that apparently allowed the COVID virus to escape received funding from NAID.

Dr. Fauci testified that he signed off on every foreign and domestic NIAID grant without reviewing the proposals.

Majority Counsel: "Who gives the final approval?"

Dr. Fauci: "You know, technically, I sign off on each council, but I don't see the grants and what they are. I never look at what grants are there. It's just somebody at the end of the council where they're all finished and they go, 'Here,' and you sign it."

Majority Counsel: "Okay. So to your knowledge, NIAID wouldn't kind of independently verify the biosafety of a foreign lab?

Dr. Fauci: "Again, I'd have to say I'm not sure. To my knowledge, I wouldn't be able to make a statement that I would be confident it would be."

Majority Counsel: "Do you know if NIAID grants go through any type of national security review as part of the process?"

Dr. Fauci: "National security review?"

Majority Counsel: "So, like, through the National Security Council or-"

Dr. Fauci: "No."

Majority Counsel: "-or anyone in the [intelligence community]-"

Dr. Fauci: "Not to my knowledge."

Majority Counsel: "I guess what we're trying to learn going forward is, obviously, U.S. labs are vetted, certified, and there's a standard of how U.S. labs operate. Are foreign labs held to the same standard as U.S. labs when they receive U.S. money, or are they the standards of the country in which they operate?"

Dr. Fauci: "I am not certain. I have heard again, I think it was subsequent to of course, that was never brought up." "When I was the director, no one ever asked me, you know, who determines, you know, what the standards of a foreign lab are. But so the answer to your question is I don't know, okay?"

Dr. Fauci claimed that he had no memory of details about the grant to the Chinese lab in Wuhan,

Majority Counsel: "Do you recall when you first found out that the year 5 progress report was missing from the EcoHealth grant?"

Dr. Fauci: "I don't recall precisely. It was somewhere on a briefing that the staff gave to me. I don't know exactly when that was. It could have been later. I don't know."

Majority Counsel: "Okay. Do you think, just to the best of your recollection, whether it was before you were aware that the year 5 progress report was late before May 2021 or it would have been after?"

Dr. Fauci: "I don't recall.

EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) grantee, awarded taxpayer funds to the Wuhan Institute of Virology to conduct gain of function research on bat coronaviruses – research that may have started the pandemic. The NIH is the top biomedical research grant agency in the world.

Republicans claim that the relationship between the NIH, the WIV, and EcoHealth raises serious questions about use of taxpayer dollars for gain-of-function research and when U.S. health officials became aware of the WIV's role in the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Fauci was the highest paid federal employee who deceived and betrayed the American people," said Congressman Jerry Carl (R-Mobile). "I introduced a bill to stop lying bureaucrats like Fauci from receiving their pensions. He has lied since the beginning and should NOT be rewarded by a single taxpayer dollar."

In a May 28 letter to NIH Director Monica Bertagnolli, subcommittee's chair, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), said the evidence "suggests a conspiracy at the highest levels of NIH and NIAID to avoid public transparency regarding the COVID-19 pandemic."

In his closing remarks, Chairman Wenstrup said that the point of the hearing: to take a "hard look at facts so we can do better in the future."

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