Fauci to Congress: 6-Foot Social Distancing Guidance Likely Not Based on Data

In closed-door congressional testimony, former chief White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci said that federal social distancing guidance during the pandemic was likely not based on any data, and conceded that the lab leak hypothesis of COVID-19's origins isn't a conspiracy theory.

Fauci's comments came during the second of two seven-hour rounds of transcribed, but non-public, testimony before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

The repeated federal recommendation that people keep six feet of distance between themselves and others "sort of just appeared," said Fauci—the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and former chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden—to lawmakers yesterday, according to a statement released today from the committee's Chairman, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R–Ohio).