WATCH: On navigating the next pandemic, Fauci cautions that an outbreak is a ‘moving target’

When asked about how to navigate the next pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who led much of the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic, cautioned that "you've got to be careful when you're dealing with a moving target" during congressional testimony Monday.

Mitch Benzine, staff director for the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, asked Fauci, if it would have been better to "more narrowly craft public health measures to specifically favor those demographics" that were disproportionately affected by the virus.

"The answer is yes, but you have to be careful," said Fauci, who directed the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases before he retired in 2022. Fauci cautioned that outbreaks complicate responses in ways that sometimes are not fully appreciated until enough time has passed.

Thinking about how to navigate the next pandemic, Fauci said, "You've got to be careful when you're dealing with a moving target."

The hearing was the latest effort among Republicans to question the U.S. response to the pandemic, including how pandemic prevention plans were created and communicated. Monday's session was in part focused on the origins of the pandemic and the nation's role in virus research in China. There are a number of theories about how COVID's spread began, including a natural jump from animals to humans and a laboratory leak. Intelligence assessments on how the virus began are inconclusive.

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