“Fauci's newly released COVID diaries reveal bizarre fixation on fame as pandemic deaths mounted,” blared Fox News’s headline. Fauci’s bizarre fame fixation as COVID deaths mounted revealed in newly released diaries,” parroted the New York Post. All the while, he wrestled with understanding and contextualizing the emerging facts, instructing the public and the president, and managing his public image and that of the U.S. public health apparatus. “There have been conspiracy theories that the virus was given GOF by inserted mutations and deliberately or accidentally released in Wuhan. For one, they show a human being who happens to be a scientist grappling with complex realities and pressures brought about by the biggest public health emergency in a generation.