Fauci, top Wuhan scientist cite same study to dismiss lab leak theory: media

Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks during a hearing of Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee titled "The Path Forward: A Federal Perspective on the COVID-19 Response" in Washington, D.C., the United States, on July 20, 2021. (J. Scott Applewhite/Pool via Xinhua)

WASHINGTON, July 25 (Xinhua) -- White House Chief Medical Advisor Anthony Fauci has repeatedly cited a scientific paper that largely dismissed the possibility that the coronavirus escaped from a lab, U.S. media reported.

The weekly magazine Washington Examiner reported on Friday that in an interview with CNN last weekend, the top U.S. infectious disease expert "repeatedly cited a scientific paper from July that argued in favor of zoonosis and largely dismissed the lab leak hypothesis."

The paper titled "The Origins of SARS-CoV-2: A Critical Review" was also cited by a top scientist from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology when arguing in favor of a natural origin for COVID-19 and against the lab leak hypothesis, the report said.

In the paper, a group of 20 internationally renowned virologists and evolutionary biologists from all over the world have noted that theories about a lab leak are almost all based on coincidence, not hard evidence.

"I mean ... although we keep an open mind that it's possible that it could be, as they say, a lab leak, that the most likely explanation is a natural evolution from an animal reservoir to a human," Fauci said in the interview.