COVID-19 Records

Private channel session 1252

28 messages over 2h 52m, 2021-04-15 – 2021-04-15.

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. 2021-04-15 12:07 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.707
    Reading that article again pissed me off more than I expected. So I wasted some time. [shared file(s): Clarificationon recent CNET article]
  2. 2021-04-15 12:15 Robert F. Garry open PDF p.707
    Not a waste of time - well done!
  3. 2021-04-15 12:18 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.707
    I mean - the idiot included Eddie being "a Chinese puppet" among many other things. That's a really, really low point for journalism.
  4. 2021-04-15 12:24 Robert F. Garry open PDF p.707
    It's a hit piece. Claims to be a science writer - hates people that can actually do science. You did a good job ofpointing out the sophistry, which describes the entire article.
  5. 2021-04-15 12:35 Robert F. Garry open PDF p.707
    Again well done. What a real journalist would do is ask the straightforward questions; "Can you please clarify (a) ifyou are accusing Drs. Holmes and Zhengli of lying," "Just to clarify - are you saying Dr. Rasmussen is lying?" andDo you agree with these statements by "Bostickson...?" No journalist has done the same of Alina, Jamie, Relman etc.
  6. 2021-04-15 13:14 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.707
    @Andrew Rambaut - do you have any insights about vaccine "breakthroughs" from your data? We just picked up four - three B.1.1.7 and one P.1 with one of the B.1.1.7s having Eek (first time we have seen that here). B.1.1.7 ishigh frequency by now, so not all that surprising to see it, although 3/4 and one with Eek is outside of what we might expect. P.1 is also circulating, but likely <5%, so picking that one up in a breakthrough also isn't great.
  7. 2021-04-15 13:20 Andrew Rambaut open PDF p.707
    I have heard they are 'enriched' for 484K but not significantly so. I am actually trying to get access to the datastream
  8. 2021-04-15 13:23 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.707
    It's my biggest fear that a few months down the line we're going to see many (many!) of these and I can't convince myself that it's _not_ going to happen. I have an unhealthy habit of refreshing the epi curve from Israel, which has been a huge success for vaccines. I want to keep it that way - but I can't shake this sense of doom (which is just partof being Kristian Andersen, I think...).
  9. 2021-04-15 13:23 Andrew Rambaut open PDF p.707
    I think the best way to test it is to compare positives in recently vaccinated (i.e. < 21 days) vs > 21 days as that will control for demographcis
  10. 2021-04-15 13:23 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.708
    Yeah.
  11. 2021-04-15 13:24 Andrew Rambaut open PDF p.708
    Breakthrough are not everything though. Vaccination may still reduce probability of onwards transmission.
  12. 2021-04-15 13:24 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.708
    Definitely
  13. 2021-04-15 13:25 Andrew Rambaut open PDF p.708
    I would like to numbers down to single figures as quickly as possible though
  14. 2021-04-15 13:26 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.708
    No question the vaccines put a huge damper on everything, but I'm thinking about the long game of variants vs immunity. Clearly immunity from natural infection isn't working very well in places like Brazil, Iran, India, RSA, etc. It's unclear to me if that's because of a difference in how strong immunity is between infection vs vaccine, or whether it's just a question of time.
  15. 2021-04-15 13:55 Robert F. Garry open PDF p.708
    Not too soon to be thinking V2 of the vaccines - yeah this is going to be a long game. May hit >1M cases per dayin the world not too long from now...
  16. 2021-04-15 13:57 Andrew Rambaut open PDF p.708
    We are already - I am on a committee for recommending the candidates to be developed.
  17. 2021-04-15 13:58 Andrew Rambaut open PDF p.708
    Currently recommending B.1.351 and B.1.1.7+E484K are taken forward - keeping options open for more.
  18. 2021-04-15 14:12 Andrew Rambaut open PDF p.708
    @Eddie Holmes and @Kristian Andersen - you guys have talked to Anjana Ahuja for Jeremy's book? How was it?
  19. 2021-04-15 14:26 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.708
    Just imagine what the 'variant' landscape is going to look like in three years from now if we don't dramaticallydecrease transmission... We're going to have huge number of co-circulating lineages - now's the time to ensure that doesn't happen... Yeah, Anjana was great and I had a fun chat with her - worth talking to her as she knows a lot of the background.
  20. 2021-04-15 14:37 Edward C. Holmes open PDF p.708
    Yes, she's good. It's going to be a great book.
  21. 2021-04-15 14:40 Edward C. Holmes open PDF p.709
    @Kristian Andersen Just read you email. It's great! Thanks. I've just let Jackson have it with both barrels incl. the USyd legal team. Here's the actual statement from me about the miners (what was in an email to him that I did not know was going to be quoted and he never told me this): "The researchers at the WIV state that they have not closer virus to SARS-CoV-2 than RaTG13, and RaTG13 is clearly not the source of SARS-CoV-2 (it's far too distant). Tome, these statements ring true because they would have very likely already published the sequence of any such virus if it had existed, particularly a virus that they would then do more work on. As such, the miners story tells usnothing about the emergence of SARS-CoV-2."
  22. 2021-04-15 14:42 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.709
    And you are absolutely right - "the miners story tells us nothing about the emergence of SARS-CoV-2". I definitely hope legal takes this on - libel, no question.
  23. 2021-04-15 14:44 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.709
    @Robert Garry Archiving a PDF version here. [shared file(s): How the coronavirus origin story is being rewritten bya guerrilla Twitter group - CNET.pdf]
  24. 2021-04-15 14:46 Edward C. Holmes open PDF p.709
    I'm keen to see his response.
  25. 2021-04-15 14:52 Robert F. Garry open PDF p.709
    Zhengli also stated in a public talk a month or so ago - the one in which Metzl harangued her about the CCP army -that the eight or nine distantly related coronaviruses they found in the mine and just haven't yet worked up are are part of an upcoming publication. More disappointment for Metzl et al who believe are these mine viruses are smoking guns.
  26. 2021-04-15 14:54 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.709
    I'm pretty sure it's these - distantly related. [shared file(s): Ew35lxKU8AAbXdw.png]
  27. 2021-04-15 14:55 Edward C. Holmes open PDF p.709
    All very good points
  28. 2021-04-15 14:59 Robert F. Garry open PDF p.709
    You could add to the litany of lies that Jackson, Metzl, DRASTIC etc are accusing Zhengli of is the negative serologyof her own staff after they had Ab assay up and running.