National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci answers a question during the daily CCP virus task force briefing as Vice President Mike Pence listens at the White House in Washington on April 9, 2020. (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, said Thursday that he doubts official COVID-19 figures released by the Chinese regime.
Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told Fox News in an interview that he does not find China’s claim of less than 5,000 COVID-19 deaths credible, nor does he believe the regime has released all the pertinent data.
“That number is really rather a low number. That number surprises me that that number is so low,” Fauci said, referring to the regime’s official claims of the number of people in China who fell victim to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus.
Dr. Anthony Fauci speaks alongside President Donald Trump at a press briefing in Washington on April 5, 2020. (Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images)
“I think any of us who have been dealing with this now, for the last few months, don’t feel confident at all that we have all of the data of the originally infected individuals, how long there were people in the circulation, or even now, how many deaths there really are in China,” Fauci said in the interview.
His comments come after increasing scrutiny of the Chinese Communist Party narrative around both the numbers and the origin of the virus, which the regime claims came about when the pathogen jumped from a bat to a human at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan.
Meanwhile, Epoch Times senior investigative reporter Joshua Philipp explored the known facts surrounding the origin of the outbreak in a seminal documentary, which detailed the Chinese regime’s mishandling and coverup of the virus, including its jailing of whistleblowers.
Speaking to Fox on Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said: “What we do know is we know that this virus originated in Wuhan, China. We know there is the Wuhan Institute of Virology just a handful of miles away from where the wet market was. There is still lots to learn. You should know that the United States government is working diligently to figure it out.”
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks during the daily briefing on the novel coronavirus in the Brady Briefing Room at the White House in Washington on April 8, 2020. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
The CCP virus has caused at least 146,201 deaths globally and infected nearly 2.2 million people as of Friday morning, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University. The numbers are considered inaccurate by many because of a lag in data collection by governments as well as significant underreporting of known cases and deaths by mainland China.
There are 671,425 confirmed cases and 33,628 deaths in the United States, the data shows.
Meanwhile, Trump told reporters in the Rose Garden on Wednesday that America “ is engaged in a historic battle against the invisible enemy.”
President Donald Trump speaks during the daily briefing on COVID-19 in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on April 14, 2020. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
“A cruel virus from a distant land has unfairly claimed thousands of precious American lives. To every citizen who has lost a cherished loved one: Your pain is our pain. We mourn as one national family,” Trump said, adding that experts have said that “the curve has flattened and the peak in new cases is behind us.”
“Nationwide, more than 850 counties, or nearly 30 percent of our country, have reported no new cases in the last seven days,” Trump added.
Tom Ozimek is a senior reporter for The Epoch Times. He has a broad background in journalism, deposit insurance, marketing and communications, and adult education.
