On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins said that he doesn’t think he has “new information” to “tip the balance” on his view on the origins of COVID-19.
Host Bret Baier asked, [relevant exchange begins around 5:25] “I remember your skepticism in the emails you sent Dr. Fauci at the beginning…about the COVID origins and the skepticism about it coming from the lab and you clarified that you thought it was not a weaponized thing from the Chinese, but that it may have been a lab accident. It seems more and more pointing that way. Are you confident saying that or closer to that?”
Collins responded, “I don’t think I have any more new information to be able to tip the balance. It’s certainly possible that this was somehow under study in the lab, even though it was not human-engineered from scratch. I’m quite confident of that, but how do we know the yeses or nos? I’ve looked at the report, certainly, from the House committee. I think we’re all waiting in the next two weeks to hear what the national intelligence study is going to come up with. We’ve cooperated with them. We’ve answered lots of their questions, given them lots of technical advice, but I’m not privy to what their conclusion is going to be. And that’ll be really important.”
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