Fauci Cuts Wuhan Lab Funding, Will Crowdfund Next Supervirus Instead
Fresh off becoming a mega-millionaire as a humble public servant, Dr. Anthony Fauci is looking for more uses for his unique set of skills. And they won’t involve tedious coronaviruses from the Far East.
“Listen, there’s only so much pleasure that you can derive from winning awards and being on CNN 9 hours a day,” Fauci told reporters. “And frankly, at this point it seems like Pfizer and Moderna are forgetting who made them what they are today.”
Dr. Fauci also said that he’s tired of just listing off new variants of coronavirus. “I mean it’s delta this and whatever Greek that, there’s just no excitement in the COVID panic anymore,” he said. “To be honest, even I’m bored of corona-schmona at this point. That’s why after tomorrow, it’s no more funding to that Wuhan Institute of Virology! Why do I need to give them money for gain-of-function research when I can just do it myself, and better? Yep! No more of these humdrum new ronas! Anthony’s over it!”
In lieu of funding the Wuhan Lab, Dr. Fauci says he’ll be crowdfunding his next manmade supervirus. He is not certain which platform he’ll use. Kickstarter generates great, short term excitement, but Patreon guarantees a better revenue stream over the long term, even with a rapidly declining userbase.
“Look,” he said laughing and petting his pet bat, Mr. Massa Mortem, which the Chinese Communist Party gave him as a one-off gift. “I’m leaning toward Patreon, but if I go with Kickstarter, we could put in some great stretch goals. I’m thinking about crossing maybe an ebolavirus with the seasonal influenza, or maybe gonorrhea with measles, and in that case the stretch goal would be to splice in swine flu. The possibilities are endless.”
He’s also considering making a vaccine that causes one’s heart to explode about 15 minutes after administration, “mostly as a goof.” He’ll have the CDC and FDA recommend it for 5-12 year olds.