COVID-19 Records

Private channel session 290

11 messages over —, 2020-08-08 – 2020-08-08.

A “conversation” here is an activity session — a run of messages with under 60 minutes of silence inside it. The channel had no native conversation boundaries.

  1. 2020-08-08 20:11 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.131
    It's getting really dumb.. Love the "Evolution has been able to produce people that can argue on Twitter but not 4amino acids that continually come and go" :wink:. I have used a similar phrase many times with journalists - "if it's hard to imagine that a virus could have gained 12 bases, just remember that you and I are currently discussing this'mystery' via Zoom, beaming our voices to the space and back. Evolution did that". SLACK_000346
  2. 2020-08-08 20:11 Robert F. Garry open PDF p.132
    Dear Dr. Garry, It has been several months since we last spoke -- I hope you are well. NBC News correspondent Janis MacKey Frayer was granted a tour of the WIV BSL 4 labs on Friday -- the first international correspondent to do so since the Covid outbreak. She will file for The Today Show tomorrow, Monday.I know from your NATURE article on the origins of the virus and our conversations that you and your co-authors concluded that it is improbable that the virus was manufactured in a lab. Because that was several months ago now (feels like a lifetime ago!),I wanted to get an update from you as to whether you still feel that it is impossible orimprobable that the outbreak started from the WIV labs in any form. (Manufactured or just "escaped" due to an errorof some sort.)I know you may very well feel that this has been "asked and answered" many times, but in the interests of accuracy Iwanted to check in before this airs tomorrow morning. Kind regards,Amy Amy PerretteProducerNBC News London
  3. 2020-08-08 20:11 Robert F. Garry open PDF p.132
    I thought the Today Show had a science contributor?
  4. 2020-08-08 20:11 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.132
    Hah! And this is pretty interesting...
  5. 2020-08-08 20:11 Edward C. Holmes open PDF p.132
    I got the same
  6. 2020-08-08 20:11 Edward C. Holmes open PDF p.132
    Did you reply Bob?
  7. 2020-08-08 20:11 Robert F. Garry open PDF p.132
    Yes - told her no change -highly improbable.
  8. 2020-08-08 20:11 Edward C. Holmes open PDF p.132
    I'll do the same
  9. 2020-08-08 20:11 Andrew Rambaut open PDF p.132
    And that if they were doing GOF experiments in a Cat 4 lab then they are much more safety conscious than the Netherlands or the US.
  10. 2020-08-08 20:11 Robert F. Garry open PDF p.132
    True! In other weekend emails - Virology Journal EiC (Batman!) asked me to participate in a letter re the CDC chloroquine/SARS paper clarifying that NIH/Fauci did not run the journal in 2005. Hmmm. Little known factoid: the only reason I started VJ was to provide a little balance - there was already a PNAS.
  11. 2020-08-08 20:11 Edward C. Holmes open PDF p.133
    So bizarre that such a clarification is needed. Sums up the current mess we are in.