The former CDC Director would disagree.
The fact that earliest infections are clustered around the Wuhan Market is laughable. Aren't those early infections also clustered around the Wuhan lab? The Lab is 8 miles from the wet market. Where do Wuhan Lab workers shop? First Study Funding -
Funding: This project has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under Contract No. 75N93021C00015 (MW). JIL acknowledges support from the NIH (5T32AI007244-38). SAG acknowledges support from the NIH (F32AI152341). JEP acknowledges support from the NIH (T15LM011271). JOW acknowledges support from NIH (AI135992 and AI136056). DLR acknowledges support of the Medical Research Council (MC_UU_12014/12) and the Wellcome Trust (220977/Z/20/Z). MAS, PL and AR acknowledge the support of the Wellcome Trust (Collaborators Award 206298/Z/17/Z – ARTIC network), the European Research Council (grant agreement no. 725422 – ReservoirDOCS) and NIH grant R01AI153044. ALR is supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research as part of the Coronavirus Variants Rapid Response Network (CoVaRR-Net; CIHR FRN#175622) and acknowledges that VIDO receives operational funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation – Major Science Initiatives Fund and from the Government of Saskatchewan through Innovation Saskatchewan and the Ministry of Agriculture. MK receives funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 874735 (VEO, Versatile Emerging infectious disease Observatory). RFG is supported by the NIH (R01AI132223, R01AI132244, U19AI142790, U54CA260581, U54HG007480, OT2HL158260), the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation, the Wellcome Trust Foundation, Gilead Sciences, and the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership Programme. ECH is supported by an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship (FL170100022). KGA is supported by the NIH (U19AI135995, U01AI151812, and UL1TR002550).
The genetic study is sketchy as well. It relies on timing of the jump to humans, but offers no transition animal reservoir to explain the jump. One would think that evidence would be apparent when looking at a relatively closed environment like a wet market. The genetic study tries to explain away "rare" genetic sequences as possible lab contamination. Um, maybe that lab 'contamination' was due to gain of function as outlined in the EcoHealth Alliance grant application.
Second study funding -
Funding: This project has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Health and Human Services, under Contract No. 75N93021C00015 (MW). JEP acknowledges support from the NIH (T15LM011271). NM acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) (NSF-2028040). JIL acknowledges support from the NIH (5T32AI007244-38). JOW acknowledges support from the NIH (R01AI135992 and R01AI136056). RFG is supported by the NIH (R01AI132223, R01AI132244, U19AI142790, U54CA260581, U54HG007480, OT2HL158260), the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation, the Wellcome Trust Foundation, Gilead Sciences, and the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership Programme. MAS and AR acknowledge the support of the Wellcome Trust (Collaborators Award 206298/Z/17/Z – ARTIC network), the European Research Council (grant agreement no. 725422 – ReservoirDOCS) and the NIH (R01AI153044). KGA is supported by the NIH (U19AI135995, U01AI151812, and UL1TR002550). ECH is funded by an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship (FL170100022). JL, HP, and MSP acknowledge support from the National Research Foundation of Korea, funded by the Ministry of Science and Information and Communication Technologies, Republic of Korea (NRF-2017M3A9E4061995 and NRF-2019R1A2C2084206). TIV acknowledges support from the Branco Weiss Fellowship. We thank AMD for the donation of critical hardware and support resources from its HPC Fund that made this work possible. This work was supported (in part) by the Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity (ELC) for Infectious Diseases Cooperative Agreement (Grant Number: ELC DETECT (6NU50CK000517-01-07) funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of CDC or the Department of Health and Human Services.
I wonder why some people are so invested in trying to protect Fauci.