Rand Paul and Dr. Fauci get into war of words over COVID-19 origin

US Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky. and Dr. Anthony Fauci got involved in a spar once again at a Senate hearing on Tuesday. The heated interaction was over the funding of the controversial Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Chinese lab that is suspected to have played a major role in the initial COVID-19 outbreak.

Earlier, Fauci and Paul had involved in verbal blows over both COVID-19 and related limitations such as lockdowns and mask-wearing.

On Tuesday, Paul directed on the gain of function research, which plays a role in making pathogens deadlier or more easily transmissible. He claimed that a U.S. virologist had been working with the Chinese institute on such research and stated that it was funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH).

Paul questioned the NIH chief, “Dr. Fauci, do you still support funding of the NIH funding of the lab in Wuhan?”

An evidently annoyed Fauci reverted, “Senator Paul, with all due respect, you are entirely, entirely and completely incorrect. The NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain of function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

The heated debate went on for a considerable amount of time, with Dr. Fauci denying Paul’s claim consistently.