Private channel session 1403
35 messages over 4h 47m, 2021-05-19 – 2021-05-19.
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.
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Off topic again, but Nature asked me to write a commentary on the paper describing the sequences from this year'sGuinea Ebola outbreak. It's comes heavily down that this is re-emergence. Given A82V is in the sequences and thatA82V arose somewhere between the initial spillover and the Gire,Andersen2014 sequences that's probably a good bet. I just want to make sure I'm not missing nuaunces (like a long-lived bat) discussed above in channel.
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Yes, almost certainly re-emergence and especially A82V gives it away - and, of course, the clock. There _are_ other explanations that can't be disproven, however, IMO persistence + re-emergence provide a much more likely explanation (we have seen all the pieces already - we just need to accept 500 days can also be five years. I have noproblem with that). Also - remember to mention the solution being vaccination as you suggested - will help combatstigma.
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Good to hear. I will endeavor not to get too far out over my skis on the phylogeny. Yes - the stigma issue was well-discussed and vaccination might be key. I'm talking to Merck (one of my students (Tom Voss is there - Jessicawas also at Merck but moved a few weeks ago to J&J) about - at least - providing some vaccine to our Ebola survivor cohort in SL to test this.
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@Eddie Holmes > I think the laws of free speech allow me to call a bunch of conspiracy theorists conspiracy theorists. I believe you're indeed right. Bloomshitters too.
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@Eddie Holmes https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/05/19/coronavirus-origins It's remarkable to me how "rationale people" writing about Bloomshit avoid the obvious --- if you think that WIV had SC2 or something very close and didn't tell anyone HOW in the hell is this _not_ a conspiracy theory. Won't responsible commentary orjournalism maybe mention that?
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@Eddie Holmes At least some of the comments are reasonable. Molecular Biologist is spot on.
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I'm on that paper and did most of the phylogenetic...
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Noticed that and guessed that - It's a really important piece of work. Trying to figure out how best to do it justice inthe Commentary.
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@Eddie Holmes He's basically reiterating what we said in our paper - but people apparently still don't get it.
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@Eddie Holmes Why Derek felt the need to write this, I don't know. It's as if anybody with a science background - orno science background - feels qualified to comment on what is an extremely complex issue. Again, these people just can't get past the fact it started in Wuhan.
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@Eddie Holmes (but they apparently don't have any issues with a researcher magically picking up the next pandemic virus from a bat butt. Okay, then - A+ for stats).
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@Eddie Holmes And shows why the conspiracy theorists are so keen to attack the pangolin data
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@Eddie Holmes It's a really inconvenient piece of evidence. It's the one thing that solidified my belief.
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@Eddie Holmes Me too
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@Eddie Holmes The large city thing that Eddie identified is important to counter the WIV is in Wuhan.
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@Eddie Holmes Yes, no one would engineer that RBD so it has to be natural. And if that's natural so is the FCS. That then must mean they had a virus very close to SC2 at WIV. But if had worked on and sequenced such a virus -which would have been so interesting - why is there no record of it in their data or a paper? If both such a virus and RaTG13 had come out of a mine in Yunnan would they have only published RaTG13?
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Look forward to it! It was an interesting experience getting 3 competing groups to all work together and just publish one good paper!
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Well done - if you don't mind I'll mention that very thing [in a nice way].
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@Eddie Holmes SC1 in Foshan (7.2M ppl) farmers, market vendors, and chefs). Agree that Eddie HKU1 emerging in Shenzhen (13M ppl) is instructive.
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@Eddie Holmes • Intermediate hosts also instructive. Intermediate host of of HKU1 and HL63 like SC2 is not known. MERS-CoV IMO is the only human CoV in which the intermediate host the camel a highly domesticated animal iswell established. For the other human CoVs the intermediate hosts IMO can each fall into the highly suspected category, but not proven. SC1 civets obviously can infected in wildlife trade, but could be other spillover hosts and the reservoir may be another animal. OC43 the same intermediate host is likely a bovine, obviously a highlydomesticated animals but which bovine? 299E intermediate might be an alpaca (PMID: 26378164).
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@Eddie Holmes I don't really think camels can be considered an "intermediate" host for MERS - seems more to me that MERS is causing an epizootic in camels, so it's pretty much a camel virus by now.
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@Eddie Holmes Spillovers are rare. Domesticated animals a key at least for Covs- probably by serving to amplify the virus in close quarters. Pigs get other CoVs - PEDV and SADS-CoV - that are likely direct spillovers from bats. Something about the big cities makes the spillover stick. Could be same thing this time humans living in closequarters able to initiate transmission chains. This happened in West Africa Ebola. The reason why no very large Ebola outbreaks in Middle Africa is population density (we might have a paper on that).
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@Eddie Holmes Good point - but that makes the distinction btwn MERS and the rest of the human CoVs all that stronger.
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@Eddie Holmes So, question: is SC1 an epizootic in civets? Hard to argue there's definite proof of that but maybe i'm missing something.
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External Sender. Be aware of links, attachments and requests. Thanks, Bob. Nice to be in touch and I hope all's well. Cheers, Mike __________________ ____ From: Garry, Robert F > Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2021 2:19 PM To: Bloom PhD, Jesse D; David A Relman; Worobey, Michael - (worobey) Subject: [EXT]Re: Technical Comment External Email That's correct I think. My understanding is that Science will decide whether or not to send for review, then ask you for a comment. Of course, based on the review they may or may not "publish." In the case of a Technical Comment publish means on-line only. Apparently, they may put the 60-word abstract in the paper journal (which perhaps a few people still look at). Cheers, Bob G. SLACK_001057 From: "Bloom PhD, Jesse O, a &<': Date: Wednesday, May 19,2 at 4: I>, David A Reiman i &01:, "Worobey, Michael - gt: (worobey)" Subject: Re: Technical Commen External Sender. Be aware of links, attachments and requests. Hi Bob, I just wanted to follow up, and am also cc-ing Mike Worobey as he is interested in this topic. Thanks again for looping us in about your comment piece. It sounds like we don't have to draft a full formal response now. But if Science considers your comment then we'd be happy to draft a response. If they don't (I'm not sure how often they published letters about letters?), if you submit your comment as an e-letter online then we would be happyto submit a response as an e-letter too. Anyway, really appreciate you keeping us informed about this, and we agree it's important to try to figure out ways todiscuss these topics in measured academic formats exactly as you are trying to initiate here! --Jesse
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@Robert Garry I think Bill may have taken my removal of his post the wrong way - ~~ After contemplating this for the last two days, I have decided to make zero substantive response to your action. However, I do intend to make a very few additional posts, confined entirely to scientific data that will continue tosupport the natural origin of SARS-CoV-2, and then retire permanently from the field of virology.It has been my passion since the age of 12, while in quarantine in the New York metro area in the face of the 1957Asian flu, listening to stories from my father about his recovery from poliomyelitis as a teenager. I believe that I have made a number of useful contributions in the last 15 months, working from home solely from my desktop computer and laptop, including the bulk of my post late this past Sunday.I do apologize for my intemperance toward the end of my post that likely presented the most difficulty. I had passedit by three reviewers, with license to redline, but none of them, including Bob Garry, changed a word. I actually tonedit down a notch from the final draft, before posting. I understand that neither Eddie Holmes or Kristian Andersenobjected either, and you yourself did not disagree. I regret the difficult position it put you in. I have a deep respect for you and your work over the past quarter century, am honored to have been a co-author with you, and wish you the best.Regards,Bill Gallaher~I do think he should publish it - just not on virological. Any thoughts?
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That's just Bill - I'd call this only very mild by Bill's standards (you've now seen the other end of the scale). *For surehe is 100% sincere about the last few sentences." I told him that you just were simply interested in keeping virological to the science, which lab leak clearly is not, and not to the personal stuff.I would not give it another thought. Yes - he can submit an toned down version to eLetters if he wishes, which it's much more appropriate.
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I have replied to encourage him to publish it and assure him he did nothing wrong.
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I think the subthread on Sharri and Alina is getting "hijacked" a bit with that big city/domestic animal/zoonot discussion. But, the letter from Bill G might have convergence. I'm pretty sure at least some of the Bloomshit signersare not aware of the Alina BS. Although Alina plays victim very well, she the one that is passing out the most accusations of misconduct to Nature and PLOS. She's at least on par with Billy and the other DRASTIC thugs.
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Holy Crap - Alina got some idiot to write an article about her wall-of-crazy. https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/scientific-leadership-on-covid-19
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Crazier and crazier. There's nothing in any of my papers and emails that speaks to the origins of the virus. If the Australian intelligence people want to see them they can. Everyone else can fuck off.
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She'll also be very surprised to learn how I informed the intelligence services about this last year and had extensive discussions with them.
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Can you imagine hiring Alina for any - like - actual job after her post-doc? Plus, she is so far gone down the "I'm amedia star" path that no way she would have the focus to keep any kind of real job in actual science. That, plus the few examples of her "science" I've actually read as pre-prints are crap.
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She's pure evil. Seriously.
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I'm going to write to the spies this morning and give them my current thoughts. I'll also offer them all my emails ifthey want them.