During that brief period when the preprint was up, while numerous scientists tore into it on Twitter and elsewhere, Tony Fauci expressed some reactions privately, later revealed among his published emails. To the director of the NIH, Francis Collins, Fauci forwarded an op-ed on origin stories, noting, “The Indian paper is really outlandish.” To colleagues within his office, on an email thread requesting his guidance for a possible response, he wrote, “Geeeez.”
