週三一場具爭議性的參議院聽證會以一份日記成為焦點，詳細呈現 Dr. Anthony Fauci 的思考紀錄。這位科學家曾成為美國因應 COVID-19 疫情時最具代表性的聲音之一，而他私下的反思，如今被用於一場持續進行的爭論，核心在於疫情如何開始以及如何被處理。

肯塔基州共和黨參議員 Rand Paul 多年來一直指控 Fauci——這位長期擔任美國國家衛生研究院首席傳染病官員的人物——在冠狀病毒起源上說謊。過去的聽證會上，已退休的 Fauci 否認這項指控，稱其為「preposterous」。週三，他援引第五修正案，拒絕回答更多問題。

Paul 透過公開 Fauci 長期撰寫的日記超過 1,000 頁，為最新這場聽證會吸引外界注意。美國衛生部長 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 告訴 Fox News，他的機構是從政府電腦中提取這些資料，並交給由共和黨主導的委員會。

Paul 引用部分摘錄，主張 Fauci 的「private record tells a different story」，與他對外說法並不一致。

其中一些內容早已出現在 Fauci 2024 年的回憶錄與當時的訪談中，包括他與其他科學家在面對一種前所未見病毒、並試圖找出最佳應對方式時所經歷的不確定性。如今這份日記補充了更細緻的紀錄，顯示這種不確定性如何在政府內部與公開場合中展現。以下是這些日記的一些重點，引用內容已修正錯字。

Fauci 在 2020 年 1 月 26 日的日記中寫到，早期感染是否與中國一處販售動物的市場有關：

「It now appears using epi data and genomic data that the first infection was in early December and was not connected to the market. The infections spread among people weeks before the Chinese reported that they were dealing with a new infection and that gave the virus time to establish itself in multigenerational (sustained) spread. Remember, early on the Chinese were saying that there is no human to human transmission and all the original 27 cases were from the market. Now we know the market was not the source, it was the amplifier. Having said that, somewhere the virus jumped from animals to humans.」

幾週後，Fauci 在接受 USA Today 訪問時幾乎使用了相同的說法：「Almost certainly, somewhere, somehow a bat infected an intermediate host who infected a human. What epidemiologists feel is that the market was an amplifier of something that was already going on. So it didn’t necessarily start in the market, but when people congregated in the market they got infected from each other as opposed to all of them getting infected from whatever animal there was in the market.」

這些說法出現在當時各方急於查明病毒起源的初期階段。在其他日記中，Fauci 提到曾召集政府與非政府科學家，討論這場疫情是否可能源自實驗室外洩；這是 Paul 所支持的一種理論。即使目前科學證據仍不完整，圍繞這些競爭性解釋的公開辯論依然具有高度政治性。

目前仍沒有定論，但許多科學家認為，病毒最可能是在自然界中出現，並由動物傳給人類，而該市場則是早期傳播點之一。Fauci 長期表示，他對兩種可能性都保持開放，但他也指出，支持 COVID-19 自然起源的證據更強，正如其近親 SARS 的情況。

Fauci 與總統 Donald Trump 之間常常緊張的關係，也在日記中占據重要位置。Trump 起初讚揚他，後來卻對他發動攻擊。Fauci 在多篇紀錄中寫下正面與負面的時刻，凸顯疫情應對不僅受公共衛生不確定性影響，也受白宮政治與訊息傳遞變化所牽動。

2020 年 3 月 11 日，他寫道：

「We went in and presented to the POTUS and he asked good questions, many of them to me. He agreed and was clearly concerned more about the health of the American people than he was about the economy, which he said would recover.」

在 2020 年 8 月 4 日的一則紀錄中，Fauci 描述了與 Trump 及其他政府官員在白宮的會面，Trump 對包括 Fauci 在內的多名與會者感到不滿：

「He started raving that we are seeing more cases only because we are doing more testing,」Fauci 寫道，並接著表示他對總統說：「Increased testing does not cause cases. When you increase testing you will of course pick up asymptomatics whom you might otherwise not notice. However, when you have increased percent positives and increased hospitalization, and increased deaths, that means that there are truly more cases.」

這份日記也包含從日常事件轉向 Fauci 日益增加的媒體與名人關注的紀錄，顯示這位全國最高級別的傳染病官員，如何成為政府簡報之外廣為人知的公眾人物。

2020 年 5 月 13 日，Fauci 寫下與 ONE Campaign 舉辦、並由 Julia Roberts 參與的 Instagram 對談：

「Had a wonderful Instagram discussion organized by the ONE Campaign with Julia Roberts. She was absolutely fabulous. She embarrassed me somewhat when I sat down in the chair and appeared on the screen through Zoom, she put her hands in front of her mouth and said ‘Oh my God. It’s Dr. Fauci, he is here.’ Then she went on to say that I was her personal hero and how happy she was to have this conversation with me. We discussed COVID-19 and its potential impact on the developing world. I told her that we have a moral responsibility to help and also we have enlightened self-interest in that if the outbreak continues in the developing world, it will always be a threat to the rest of the world. Also, we discussed the importance of including the developing world in the vaccine trials.」

Fauci 也記錄了在 Trump 生病期間，來自當時白宮幕僚長 Mark Meadows 的來電。這則紀錄以「sxs」代表「symptoms」，並提到 Trump 的體溫、氧氣濃度降至令人擔憂的水準，以及決定給予總統一種抗病毒藥物。

2020 年 10 月 4 日，Fauci 寫道：

「Mark Meadows called my cell while I was walking on the C \u0026 O Canal at around 8:30 AM to ask my advice about when the POTUS could go out publicly again. I mentioned that the CDC guidelines say 10 days from the onset of sxs. His sxs started Thursday, Oct. 1 and so 10 days would be Saturday, Oct. 10. Mark told me that on Friday his temp was 103 and his O2 sat was in the 80s. That triggered the Remdesivir. Today (Sunday) he is up and about in his room and is afebrile. O2 sat is improved and he feels much better. I told Mark to send the POTUS my best wishes.」

這篇報導最初刊載於 Fortune.com