Emails show Fauci made urgent inquiry about gain-of-function research as pandemic began

U.S. infectious disease chief Anthony Fauci made an urgent inquiry about controversial gain-of-function research in February 2020 as the coronavirus was beginning its deadly spread from China across the world, according to official government emails forced into public view this week.
 
The emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by The Washington Post and Buzzfeed News are likely to add new evidence to the growing debate over whether the Wuhan Institute of Virology near the epicenter of the pandemic was engaged in gain-of-function research that made the coronavirus more infectious to human and whether the pandemic started with an accident in the Chinese lab.

The emails obtained by Buzzfeed include one dated Feb. 1, 2020 in which Fauci appears to make an urgent request to his top deputy Hugh Auchincloss, the principal deputy director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases that Fauci has led for decades.