Fauci says U.S. was given wrong information about virus "right from the beginning"

The U.S. was given inaccurate information about the coronavirus at the beginning of the crisis Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Saturday.

When Fox News host Jesse Watters asked Fauci if he believes China or the World Health Organization "misled" him or if the WHO leader himself could have been "deceived," Fauci noted that while he does not know the details behind the inaccurate information, it was disseminated from the start of the crisis.

"You know I don't know where the missteps went, the only thing I know what the end result was, that early on we did not get correct information," Fauci said. "And the incorrect information was propagated right from the beginning because you know when the first cases came out, that were identified I think on December 31st in China and we became aware of this, they said this was just animal to human period."

"Now we know retrospectively that there was ongoing transmission from human to human in China, probably at least a few weeks before then," he said.

Fauci said once the illness hit the U.S. it became evident "that was misinformation right from the beginning."

He added that "whosever fault that was, you know, we're gonna go back and take a look at that when this is all over, but clearly it was not the right information that was given to us."