Private channel session 1442
78 messages over 12h 2m, 2021-05-27 – 2021-05-27.
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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https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/the-considerable-if-circumstantial-evidence-of-a-wuhan-lab-leak/
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gish galloping garbage
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So much garbage...
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This one is interesting though - musings about the FCS and it turns out Vince talked to Baltimore... https://youtu.be/DTx4EIYzcWk?t=5073
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Yeah at the end - he mentions @Kristian Andersen FCS tweetorial - it's actually his must read "pick." Baltimore might be open to sign.
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I suspect Baltimore may definitely be interested in signing - especially if we go via Vince.
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I really should not read this shit. tl/dr lies, lies lies https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/lab-leak-theory-on-the-media
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First quote: "ALINA CHAN We are in this pandemic that's been ongoing for about one and a half years now, there has been no actual investigation of how it began". Unbelievable.
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And the so-called reporter - not a peep to question that.
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Brooke Gladstone - of all people. Disappointing.
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In other news we are tracking a B.1.617.2 variant variant with K417N (Karen) - probably at quite high prevalence inNepal with lots of travel exports. Looks nasty.
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Interesting - a couple of B.1.429s with Karen in them too. I thought maybe L452R would be non-conducive to Karen.... https://outbreak.info/compare-lineages?gene=S&threshold=75
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But add 'more transmissible than B.1.17' and it could be a problem
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The important addition to that question that I think is often forgotten - "in what setting". I can believe that 617 is more transmissible than 117 in certain settings (high natural immunity, high one-shot immunity, mostly), but in a naive population, is it more fit? Not so sure about that.
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And it's worth pointing out that this is strictly an academic question, not a public health one - it's clear 617 is aproblem and we need to act, but that was clear weeks ago.
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Just discussing that. My personal hunch has been that B117 is adapted to strong NPI by being more transmissible early but for shorter (causing more damage and thus severity). Make the most of limited number of contacts. 617.2may have a longer pre-symptom period making it better in a more free-for-all environment (i.e., unfortunate timing asUK restrictions have lifted).
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Yeah, that's an interesting theory - although it seems like 117 may actually also infect for longer? Did Oli ever do anyof the modeling analyses to try and flesh these differences out a little more?
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I wonder if they have enough material to shotgun sequence the environmental samples from the market? Might tell them want animals were being sold my looking at the expressed host genes (e.g. COII). Doesn't even need to be the virus positive samples although they would be better.
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Well, fuck me - so obvious and honestly I had not thought about it. Yes, they should and yes that should be totallydoable.
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Could do a COI amplification - i.e., species barcoding?
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I'll see if I can get George and Weifeng to do it
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Yeah, they should really get on it - metagenomic sequencing should be sufficient. It'll be messy, but not a lot of data needed to do meaningful IDs
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You sure you would be able to do species ID? Pretty unlikely to bring up anything with species level specificity
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COI would be much more sensitive and there is the BOLD database
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It will be messy, but there should be enough to identify the dominant host and at least to exclude humans
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You're the man @Eddie Holmes
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(we should add this suggestion to the letter)
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"metaphorical disco club during a pandemic". Pretty accurate :wink: [shared file(s): Screen Shot 2021-05-27 at 14.09.12.png]
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27-May-2021 Dear Dr. Garry, Manuscript number: abj5092 Thank you for submitting your manuscript "Comment: Investigate the origins of COVID-19" to Science. We will not be publishing any follow-up letters to the Bloom et al. letter given that arguments for one theory or the other remainspeculative. We are therefore notifying you so that you can seek publication elsewhere.Sincerely,Jennifer SillsScience
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Well so much for a "dispassionate science-based discourse."
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I thought they wanted a debate?!
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```The goal of Science's Insights section is to be the best place for scientists to talk to each other about science. So,given the importance of this issue and the breadth of expertise and outstanding qualifications of the authors, it wasan easy decision to publish the Letter. The authors acknowledged that demanding transparency from China--whileacknowledging the important role of Chinese researchers in tackling the virus--is a nuanced and important task given the discouraging rise of anti-Asian sentiment over the past 18 months.```
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This actually makes no sense - if both arguments are "speculative," then why the hell did they publish the Bloomshit, which they just called speculative?
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Yeah - good point Andrew.
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And to be clear, the Bloomshit letter is speculating that Shi et al are involved in a massive conspiracy and cover-up.
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That's hilarious. From a journal called "Science".
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And some cover-up it would need to be. If they had 3 serious cases in the 2nd week of Nov then there would be 10sof less serious cases dating back into October. Lots is the must have known and obviously Shi. That's a lot of peopleto keep quiet, inc. all those their lab results are negative.
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After the big can of whoopass Amy M unloaded on them last night I think that the Science Editors are likely sitting inthe corner licking their wounds.
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... and one additional thing to that point that Joel brought up earlier today - if WIV really had three people who endedup in the hospital with COVID, a TON of people would have had to have gotten infected before that wouldstatistically be plausible given hospitalization rates.
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Yes, that's my point as well.
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Well, of course it is - only read the first part :wink:
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Which also means that they started the cover-up long before this outbreak became serious
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So, big outbreak at WIV but it's all kept quiet in November. And this cover-up would be going on for even longer ifthey knew back in September and so took their database offline.
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Yup, that's what happened.
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So what we have is a failed CDC Director speculating in an area of virology he does not understand, A CNN scienceanchor tagging on, two failed exNYTimes authors seeking relevance or just looking for an income stream with abook, a failed Intelligence officer David Asher (who now Batman to Steve Quay's Robin_ who own deputy secretary pulled the plug on the investigation (apparently unbenown to the WSJ, but clear even to Fox), and a couple of oldNobelists also proving they are long past their prime (redeem yourself DB). Mix this with a Republican toxic stew andan few ill-considered Fauci quote. Mix in Angie's opportunists, dilettantes, racist/misogynist assholes, and trolls and shit decisions at the journal call "science" and this is where we're at.
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At this moment probably about as good as it gets from the NYT - it could be worse. [shared file(s): Scientists Don't Want to Ignore the Wuhan 'Lab Leak' Theory, Despite No New Evidence - The New York Times.pdf]
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Not great though. What do you make of this? Surely nobody is reading Yan's report? [shared file(s): Screen Shot 2021-05-28 at 8.54.53 am.png]
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https://cnnphilippines.com/world/2021/5/25/WHO-China-overlooked-data.html Good guy Nick Paton Walsh, CNN also doing some - well - reporting . It relevant to the 2-3 cases from David Ashers "intel" "Leaked documents reported by CNN revealed the flu outbreak in December of 2019, showing a significant spike in Wuhan but also other cities in Hubei at the end of that year. The cause and consequences of the outbreak of influenza-like illnessesremains unclear. The source said the spike showed "there was a large influenza outbreak happening more or less at the same time"as the emergence of the coronavirus. The simultaneous emergence of the influenza outbreak with the first cases ofthe virus "explains the difficulties of identifying Covid cases in December and early January," said the source. Itremains unclear the impact the influenza spike had on detecting the first cases of the novel coronavirus."
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Yes, I might have a chat to Nick.
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THat's a good idea - one of the few no nonsense types left (Ed Yong waiting for you to get your hands "dirty")- Tell him the Science editorial staff are acting irrationally....:slightly_smiling_face:
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This is extraordinary: https://www.smh.com.au/national/where-did-covid-come-from-the-case-for-a-leak-of-a-virus-engineered-in-a-wuhan-lab-20210526-p57vgt.html
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This statement "In particular, we know from her published work that Shi had successfully been inserting furin cleavage sites into viruses to make them more infective" strikes me a bare-faced lie.
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I can't believe they published this! If I can show that they did not use FCS then I can embarrass this idiot.
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*No relevant priors?* Clive Hamilton is a professor at Charles Sturt University in Canberra and author of Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World.
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I don't know of Shi having engineered FCSs - and that article seems like pure fiction, top to bottom, of somebody who's bought into the Wade bullshit.
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It's a disgrace.
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Bill too? I just don't get it. I really don't. [shared file(s): Screen Shot 2021-05-27 at 5.58.50 PM.png]
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4524054/
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Yeah, she's on that paper, but I don't believe that work is actually hers
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exacty! In this paper Shi and Baric make a point mutation in the HKU4 spike. Baric did it nit Shi I'm pretty sure and we're talking pseudoviruses which as the name implies are not viruses.
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Yup
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Honestly, the NYTimes article makes my blood boil. It's not "we need to consider a lab leak" - I get that and I agree with that. However, it's the false equivalence and the idea that we have no data either way - it's just not true, but I'm pretty damn sure somebody like Marc or Akiko haven't actually looked at any of it. It's just lazy - and dangerous. And where in the article are they discussing the extremely high likelihood that this came in via infected animals? Idon't see any of that - only lab, lab, lab. It's clear that people who say "I'm keeping an open mind" very clearly believe it came from a lab - they're just too afraid to admit it. At least fucking eDim is consistent on that point - I wish the Bloomshitters would be too. This whole "I'm just asking questions" leads to a bottomless well of hypotheticals,which is incredibly unhelpful.
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So, a single point mutation. No evidence of "inserting a furin cleavage site"?
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Correct - and it's not her work.
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:+1:
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on the shit scale Zimmer's NYT is about 6 or 7 - most of the rest are 10s
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Except for Amy - 0 on the shit scale
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Useful preprint from David online
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Yeah, just reading it...
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Says the same as our Cell paper re: RaTG13.
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Found this highly interesting: "One possible recent disruption that caused widespread and unusual movements of animals in China and may have increased the permeability of this barrier, was the dramatic shortage of pork products in 2019 attributable to an African swine fever virus (ASFV) outbreak impacting 100s of millions of pigs inChina38. Such a major disruption in the food supply chain will have potentially brought humans into increased contact with Sarbecovirus infected animals as i) exotic meats replaced pork, ii) animals from rural locations were brought to city markets and/or iii) by meat from infected animals being transported in cold chain processes."
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I didn't know this bit either: "Still, the fact that viruses in the Yunnan clade (consisting of RmYN02, RpYN06 and PrC31) were sampled from three different Rhinolophus species supports the hypothesis that these viruses readily infect multiple differenthorseshoe bat species with overlapping geographical ranges."Didn't realize they were different species of bats - but, of course, I should, since the naming gives it away.
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Figuring out how the viruses expand their host range even further would be key. Of course, that would require making chimeras which the bloomshitters would frown upon.
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I found the link to the host range of pangolins quite interesting... https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/12764/168392151
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Eddie's point that the nearest virus to SARS-CoV-2 isn't actually one that WIV has also needs repeating! [shared file(s): Recombination tree.png]
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Not to moan too much, but we said all this in our Cell paper (there's even a whole section on host range mapping).Probably good that it is being said again though.
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... for people like me with a short-term memory, it's good to be reminded again... :wink:
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At least that furin cleavage site tweet is coming in handy for the Aussies :scienceparrot: [shared file(s): Screen Shot2021-05-27 at 9.01.45 PM.png]