Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, admitted there was no evidence to support social distancing to limit the spread of Covid-19 and failed to recall evidence for child masking, according to newly released transcripts of congressional testimony he gave earlier this year.

Fauci testified behind closed doors over two days in January to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, and the subcommittee released the transcripts of his testimony ahead of his public testimony scheduled to take place next week.

“You know, I don’t recall. It sort of just appeared. I don’t recall, like, a discussion of whether it should be 5 or 6 or whatever,” Fauci testified toward the end of day two.

“Did you see any studies that supported 6 feet?” a subcommittee staffer followed up.

“I was not aware of studies that — in fact, that would be a very difficult study to do,” Fauci conceded.

Upon further questioning, Fauci said six feet was “an empiric decision that wasn’t based on data or even data that could be accomplished.”

The six-foot directive was given by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and supported by Fauci, the face of the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, and other public-health officials such as then–National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins.

Collins testified earlier this year and similarly admitted that there was no evidence to support six feet apart, as National Review first reported.

During the second day of his testimony, Fauci made a similar concession about the lack of scientific evidence to support masking children to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

“Do you recall reviewing any studies or data supporting masking for children?” a staffer asked Fauci.

“You know, I might have, Mitch, but I don’t recall specifically that I did. I might have,” Fauci replied.

Nonetheless, Fauci defended initial school closures but ceded responsibility for them to other decision-makers.

On the question of learning loss, Fauci suggested the debate on the impacts of child masking is still unsettled. An abundance of research since the beginning of the Covid pandemic indicates the combination of school closures and child-mask mandates contributed to generational learning loss for K–12 students.

After the fact, Fauci admitted that vaccine mandates potentially contributed to vaccine hesitancy and suggested the possible implications of vaccine mandates should have been studied beforehand.

“We really need to take a look at the psyche of the country, have maybe some social-type studies to figure out, does the mandating of vaccines in the way the country’s mental framework is right now, does that actually cause more people to not want to get vaccinated, or not? I don’t know. But I think that’s something we need to know,” Fauci testified. He noted the widespread acceptance of mandates for other vaccines before the pandemic.

Fauci and Collins orchestrated the “Proximal Origins” paper published by Nature at the start of the coronavirus pandemic meant to discredit the lab-leak theory of coronavirus origins. When he testified, Fauci admitted there is a possibility that the coronavirus came from a lab in Wuhan, China.

“Well, it’s a possibility. I think people have made conspiracy aspects from it. And I think you have to separate the two when you keep an open mind, that it could be a lab leak or it could be a natural occurrence,” Fauci said.

Collins also admitted earlier this year that the scientific debate on the origins of the coronavirus is not settled.

However, Fauci continues to lean toward believing the natural-origins theory of the virus’s emergence. He denied having any relationship before the pandemic with the leader of the taxpayer-funded organization that oversaw bat coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

“Prior to the pandemic, I really don’t recall any specific interaction with him,” Fauci said on the first day of his testimony when asked about disgraced EcoHealth Alliance president Dr. Peter Daszak.

“So the picture shows I’ve met him. If you ask me, do I have a relationship of back-and-forth discussions with him, the answer to that would be ‘no,’” Fauci later added.

Daszak is close friends with Fauci’s top deputy, Dr. David Morens, and the two appeared to discuss coronavirus origins through Morens’s private Gmail account. In April, Daszak seemed to discuss with colleagues Morens’s attempts to delay his congressional testimony past Fauci’s, a plan that proved unsuccessful.

The U.S. government is initiating formal debarment proceedings against EcoHealth and Daszak personally to prevent them from receiving taxpayer funding in the wake of EcoHealth’s lack of transparency surrounding the research in Wuhan. The decision to initiate debarment proceedings happened shortly after a recommendation by the subcommittee ahead of Daszak’s public testimony at the start of May.

At his upcoming public hearing, Fauci will likely face questions from subcommittee lawmakers on what appear to be efforts by Fauci’s top aides to dodge Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests related to information central to the public’s understanding of the coronavirus pandemic.

Leading up to Fauci’s public testimony, the subcommittee requested access to Fauci’s private email account and cellphone to further investigate his involvement in the apparent plan to dodge FOIA searches.