COVID-19 Records

Private channel session 1469

34 messages over 4h 7m, 2021-06-02 – 2021-06-02.

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. 2021-06-02 12:01 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.905
    What the heck _did_ Ron say? [shared file(s): E25KVcZWYAU9TZX.jpeg]
  2. 2021-06-02 12:29 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.905
    Why the heck did they redact all of this? Ron's notes are GREAT! [shared file(s): Screen Shot 2021-06-02 at 12.28.34.png]
  3. 2021-06-02 12:39 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.905
    Fulls thread - all of it redacted. Not sure why, since there's a lot of good stuff in there. [shared file(s): Re:Teleconference]
  4. 2021-06-02 12:40 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.905
    shared file(s): Re: Teleconference
  5. 2021-06-02 13:36 Robert F. Garry open PDF p.905
    Careful out there gentlemen. Someone just threw a rather large rock at my door with a note wrapped around it withduct tape. On the outside of the note: To the ComSimp.
  6. 2021-06-02 13:52 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.905
    Fuck, really? Is your address public? I have been having a few companies working on scrubbing me from the internet over the last few months, but there are still traces out there... (filings, etc.).
  7. 2021-06-02 13:55 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.906
    I'm sorry about that Bob - really need to be careful out there since this is being spun out of proportion in right-wingcircles. All these emails unfortunately fit perfectly into a narrative - no matter what that narrative is.
  8. 2021-06-02 14:16 Robert F. Garry open PDF p.906
    Rocks and ugly notes we can handle, I suppose but will probably get that security camera hooked up . Yeah the right-wing crazies are itching for a revolution. Flynn, Trump etc say it's coming.
  9. 2021-06-02 14:29 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.906
    Shoot - can't you get that information deleted Bob? You might want to consider something like DeleteMe or PrivacyDuck - or both... Plus file some manual requests.
  10. 2021-06-02 14:33 Robert F. Garry open PDF p.906
    Yeah - a good idea...
  11. 2021-06-02 14:41 Edward C. Holmes open PDF p.906
    Jesus Bob - that's bad. This is really not on. We can't make ourselves and our families targets. Sharri is so dumb -just wait til she finds out that I told the Chief Medical Officer and the intelligence services here that we thought itmight be a lab leak...hang on, though, how can that be a cover-up?
  12. 2021-06-02 14:43 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.906
    BECAUSE EDDIE!!!
  13. 2021-06-02 14:47 Robert F. Garry open PDF p.906
    In other new it looks like the MOMA might actually let me use The Persistence of Memory along with my commentary The Persistence of Ebola regarding @Andrew Rambaut et al. sequencing paper on the newest Guinean Ebola outbreak coming out in _Nature_. Other good news - the mystery of the "thing" in PoM is solved - seems to be a bat - maybe a hammerhead bat. [shared file(s): image.png, image.png]
  14. 2021-06-02 14:50 Edward C. Holmes open PDF p.906
    I'm having doubts about the wisdom of our new letter: (i) it's crap - SO depressing that I spent ages cutting it down for it to be readded; (ii) it's late; (iii) there's so much hate out there that people will be reluctant to sign and I can't say I'm keen to get back in the firing line; (iv) what will it actually achieve - people have made their minds up.
  15. 2021-06-02 14:59 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.906
    We'll get it back in shape, I'm sure. Let's decide on next steps once we have it - I very much think it's worthwhile tohave it out there for something to point to.
  16. 2021-06-02 15:00 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.906
    I have a lot of urgent shit to deal with today, but I'll have some time tomorrow (hopefully...) to go through it - I think itcan be brought back to life and the full version history is saved.
  17. 2021-06-02 15:14 Andrew Rambaut open PDF p.906
    Sorry - I have been out of the loop working on B.1.617.2. But I agree Eddie - it is got quite far from what we were thinking it should be. Everyone keeps saying 'keep it tight' and then adding more stuff in. I think we should not mention manipulation - no furin site, no passaging, nothing - that is all dumb and has been dealt with. I think itshould just address how implausible it is for it ever to get to the lab to escape in the first place and how plausible the animal route is. The one thing we need to nail is the 'lab escape is plausible' shit that serious scientists are signingup to.
  18. 2021-06-02 15:32 Robert F. Garry open PDF p.907
    Agreed! - that's where your capture-escape definition is helpful. Capturing the next pandemic virus, then getting infected is hard [and much less likely than 1 of 14M wildlife traders getting infected]. Escape also rare, but not impossible - that is why the Lab leakers focus on that. Throw in capture-manipulate-escape (still being pushed bythe likes of eDim, Yuri etc) and its a slam dun it didn't happen. [shared file(s): What Did Fauci Tell Trump About Wuhan_ - WSJ.pdf]
  19. 2021-06-02 15:36 Robert F. Garry open PDF p.907
    eDim - might be feeling a little overly cocky these days. [shared file(s): image.png]
  20. 2021-06-02 15:36 Robert F. Garry open PDF p.907
    He's talking about Fauci and Collins here.
  21. 2021-06-02 15:36 Edward C. Holmes open PDF p.907
    Jon Cohen's story had nothing to do it for me - I don't even remember seeing it
  22. 2021-06-02 15:59 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.907
    Jon Cohen's story is brought up because that's the story Tony forwarded to me in his email - Eddie, we're both quoted in it, but yeah, it had nothing to do with any of this. Andrew, what's the skinny on B.1.617.2? I don't see anything I particularly like when it comes to that variant.
  23. 2021-06-02 15:59 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.907
    Warning or Wanted? I'm confused. [shared file(s): image.png]
  24. 2021-06-02 16:05 Edward C. Holmes open PDF p.907
    I think it should read "Warning: avoid this man at all costs"
  25. 2021-06-02 16:05 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.907
    Better than "Wanted", I guess...
  26. 2021-06-02 16:07 Edward C. Holmes open PDF p.907
    What a mess. Fauci did everything right.
  27. 2021-06-02 16:09 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.907
    We all did - and do. Doesn't matter - too good a conspiracy. SLACK_001122 But, that also doesn't matter - it's all about the long-game and hence that paper is important. I'll get back to ittomorrow.
  28. 2021-06-02 16:09 Edward C. Holmes open PDF p.908
    I see Trevor is pontificating again He is forgetting all the zoonotic IAVs
  29. 2021-06-02 16:09 Edward C. Holmes open PDF p.908
    I like the Fauci ink blot test at the bottom: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57336280
  30. 2021-06-02 16:09 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.908
    Hah, yeah, that ink blot test is :100: spot on. These emails fit whatever narrative you believe.
  31. 2021-06-02 16:09 Kristian G. Andersen open PDF p.908
    I don't know what Trevor is on about - the first tweet in that thread is outright false: "We now have mainstream scientific opinions that largely range between "lab leak can be dismissed" and "both zoonosis and lab leak are viable" Eh, no - nobody said we could dismiss anything. We said it was unsupported and highly unlikely. Also, we're not talking about uninformed priors here - there's _actual_ data, which Trevor knows well.
  32. 2021-06-02 16:09 Andrew Rambaut open PDF p.908
    Confidentially - it will be in the next PHE Tech Brief - but it is not good. Modellers have really consolidated around a50% transmissibility advantage over B.1.1.7 (I am not sure I am quite comfortable with that yet because there islarge heterogeneity of R in time and place - which makes less sense if it is all due to an inherent advantage). Also evidence of higher rate of hospital admissions from two independent studies. And evidence of a significant vaccine effect. Really not good. I just hope some of this is not the case.Is there any evidence of growth in the USA? If the above is true I would imagine it is going to flare up all over the place.
  33. 2021-06-02 16:09 Andrew Rambaut open PDF p.908
    "Hello, My name is Daniel Payne. I'm a reporter with Just the News. I hope you're well. I have been reviewing the major release of Dr. Anthony Fauci's emails from last year. In one sequence of emails Inoticed you were part of an early February 2020 conference call involving several experts discussing what appearsto be, at least in part, gain-of-function research. Can you offer any insight into what that conversation was about? What was discussed in it? What was concluded? Are you able to provide any documentation from the phone call? Thanks so much. I'm also at i.DanielYeah right.
  34. 2021-06-02 16:09 Andrew Rambaut open PDF p.909
    OK. Here is a stab at the opening paragraph and structure of the letter. I think this point (that lab escape is not the point) is still worth making as it is not well understood. All of the other stuff (FCSs etc is just irrelevant if the virus was never there in the first place). If people want to say 'well what if... humanised', 'well what if... GOF' etc then let them.It is the grandstanding 'leaks are plausible' scientists that I think we should put on the spot here. ```Since the first reports of a new SARS-like human coronavirus in late December 2019 in Wuhan, China, and as aresult of the subsequent pandemic, there has been intense global interest in understanding how and where SARS-CoV-2 first infected humans. Both preceding and following the recent WHO-convened "Global Study ofOrigins of SARS-CoV-2", primary interest has coalesced on two seemingly competing hypotheses: the "lab escape" scenario and one of natural "zoonotic" emergence. However with the focus on escape and arguments of plausibility based on prior instances of pathogens leaking from laboratory environments, proponents omit to consider the othercomponent of this hypothesis, "lab capture" - the plausibility that SARS-CoV-2 was ever in a laboratory from whichto escape in the first place. In essence the "lab-capture-escape" scenario is just a very specific conjecture about the exact nature and route of a zoonotic spillover. In the absence of any documentary evidence at all, we believe the likelihood that a human-transmissible bat coronavirus would ever have been present in a laboratory is so unlikely that the plausibility of escape is irrelevant. [Discuss all the zoonosis stuff... intermediate hosts... animal exposure etc] [Bring it back to the tiny prior probability of capture given how rare human transmissible viruses are in bats][finish with the implied cover-up by the leak-proponents, the pointlessness of demanding anything and the fact the natural origins need to be the focus of our time]```I haven't put this in the document because I think we (the executive committee) should make a decision about whether we go forward with this.