A virologist with links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and Dr. Anthony Fauci has suggested that hedgehogs might be to blame for the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the Washington Examiner, Peter Daszak shared a study that analyzed a novel betacoronavirus, which was found in bats near Moscow in 2015. He claimed that the "spike gene showed the closest similarity" to coronaviruses seen in European hedgehogs.
The study also asserted that "the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic … is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which is most likely zoonotic."
Daszak was listed as the only U.S. author on the study, which was funded by the Russian government and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Examiner reported. The study's 11 other authors were Russian doctors with connections to two Russian state-run universities and to the Russian government's Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing.
According to the Examiner, the virologist has long dismissed the lab leak theory as the origin of COVID-19 and has defended his U.S.-funded bat research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
Daszak directed hundreds of thousands in funding from the NIH to the Wuhan lab and was a World Health Organization-China joint study team member in early 2021, when the team said the lab leak theory was "extremely unlikely."
This week the Energy Department joined the FBI in saying it believes with "low confidence" that the most likely origin for COVID-19 was a Chinese government lab leak.
On Tuesday, Daszak repeatedly questioned the Energy Department's findings, tweeting and retweeting posts about the coronavirus' origins.
"So little news on COVID origins that a non-story becomes a story," he said in one post.
"The DoE has low confidence in its conclusion. Normally that would not be headline news!" he said in another.
In March 2021, Daszak told 60 Minutes that he took Wuhan lab staff at their word that COVID was not present in their labs and that proper protocols were followed to prevent leaks of pathogens.
"We asked them tough questions," Daszak said at the time. "They weren't vetted in advance. And the answers they gave, we found to be believable — correct and convincing."