Private channel session 1564
15 messages over 2h 3m, 2021-07-09 – 2021-07-09.
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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Question from Jon Cohen:
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```Is this accurate? How likely is is that humans infected civets with SARS-CoV? Begin forwarded message: From: Frutos > Date: July 8, 2021 at 8:06:23 PM PDT To: Jon Cohen > Subject: Re: Interesting question [EXTERNAL EMAIL] In the trees SARS-CoV RdRp and spike are shown in red. The host code is Plar for civets and Hsap for humans. None is ancestral to the other. It is the same virus. Le 09/07/2021 à 04:19, Jon Cohen a écrit : So you disagree with the rooting that shows civet SARS-CoV is ancestral to human? On Jul 8, 2021, at 6:31 PM, Frutos .fr> wrote: [EXTERNAL EMAIL] I didn't fully answered. Yes it is misguided because of quasispecies and metapopulation but also because of the flawed idea of a linear process. That it goes from A to b to C to D in a linear way. No. It is a non linear process. The circulation works the same for SARS as for COVID. Civets have been contaminated by humans not the other way around. Like minks with SARS-CoV-2. Le 09/07/2021 à 03:00, Jon Cohen a écrit : With SARS-CoV, I think there's a compelling case that the virus went from bats>other species>eventually tocivets>humans. This is the argument that the sequence makes. Do you think that argument is misguided becauseof the quasispecies and metapopulation?On Jul 8, 2021, at 5:55 PM, Frutos.fr> wrote: [EXTERNAL EMAIL] Jon,No. it is not possible.It is a quasispecies evolution. Human viruses exist only in humans. SARS-CoV-2 is just one of the multiple human avatars of the SARSmetapopulation. SARS-CoV is another one. Both have emerged by chance. Many haven't. SARS-CoV-3 is perhaps already evolving in humans but wewill know it only after its emergence. Viruses from the same metapopulation will evolve differently dependingon the host species. Put a human virus in another host, the sequence will change. In animals you will find cousins and none of them will bethe ancestor. Ancestors have already disappeared a long time ago.It is an endless process of circulation and evolution. BestRogerLe 09/07/2021 à 02:42, Jon Cohen a écrit :Roger,Thanks for the thorough explanation.I understand your point about surveillance to prevent outbreaks, but how about now, once the outbreak hassurfaced? Couldn't surveillance of wild animals potentially lead to a clue as to which animals harbored a closer relative than RaTG13? JonOn Jul 8, 2021, at 5:21 PM, Frutos.fr> wrote: [EXTERNAL EMAIL]Hi Jon,No, it won't help at all.1) We can do surveillance only on things we know. By definition, thecausative agent of a novel emerging disease is not known. It is known only after the disease has been characterized and the causative agent has been isolated. The novel disease is detected and characterized only when physicians see a lot of people coming at the same time withatypical symptoms. This is exactly what happened with SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19. Far too late to do any surveillance.2) The pandemic virus does not exist yet in the wild. It only evolves inhumans following the primo infection (primary case - first human to beinfected by the pathogen). Looking for the pandemic virus in the wild ishunting for unicorns, for things that don't exist. The emergence of adisease is an accident and the emerging virus is only one out of amultitude which by chance benefited from an accidental chain of events leading to disease emergence (definition of an accident). It isunpredictable and the chain of events is of societal nature not ofbiological nature. It is impossible to say which one out of all the viruses found in the wild may evolve in humans to give a pandemic virus. The ancestor of the pandemic virus might even have not been found.3) We are dealing with metapopulations of viruses circulating widely and evolving and changing all the time4) They evolve so fast that in the theoretical case we could find all the viruses present in all animals in a region, if we do it again two years later on the same animals, we will not find the same viruses. Viruses found at a time T0 cannot help to say which one will emerge attime T4 or T5.5) The surveillance is really useless. We don't know what to look for and having a catalog does not tell which one in the list may evolve in avirus well adapted to humans and if this virus will ever encounter thesocietal chain of events leading to the emergence of a disease (theamplification loop). This is why the emergences of diseases are so rare.6) Surveillance for disease or symptoms is useless also since when wesee the symptoms it is too late, the virus has already spread.6) To summarize, after the emergence of the disease it is too late and the surveillance of pathogens cannot tell which virus may emerge one day.I am attaching two manuscripts that have just been accepted today (both the same day !) They will be online soon. One is in Environmental Research (Elsevier) and the other in New Microbes New Infections(Elsevier) . They might help clarifying several things. BestRogerLe 08/07/2021 à 22:12, Jon Cohen a écrit :Roger,An editor raised an interesting question. Even if there technically is no spillover and a stochastic event leads to the zoonotic jump that takes and causes an outbreak, would surveillance of animals have value because it could potentially find a close relative of SARS-CoV-2? As is, we don't have any close relatives. Thanks, Jon<Opinion unpreparedness_Revised.pdf><Article comments Accepted.pdf><Figure 1_Comment_Article_MacLean.pdf>```
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Roger has some relevant points but then as you go up the thread gets increasingly bonkers:
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````It is a quasispecies evolution. Human viruses exist only in humans. SARS-CoV-2 is just one of the multiple human avatars of the SARS metapopulation. SARS-CoV is another one. Both have emerged by chance. Many haven't. SARS-CoV-3 is perhaps already evolving in humans but we will know it only after its emergence.``` What??
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I've come across this guy before. I can't quite recall how. He thinks that everything is interconnected. Clearly crazy. Ithought another reason that civets were ancestral was that they had very high prevalence:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3323399/
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Yeah - and the found SARS in some that lay outside the diversity of humans.
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Eddie - what is your current status with your FOI requests? I guess the rules are different in Australia but it might begood to coordinate as my requests are:• All correspondence between you and me from 2019-2021 (my admin has said we narrow this to only those about the lab-escape stuff because they make it clear that is what they are interested in).A second request asking for:• All documents about the "Proximal Origins ..." research project (I am not sure how we will deal with that as it wasn'ta research project).
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I should say that some of the emails make it clear that you are not part of a conspiracy - this one where you sent methe pictures of the raccoon dogs: [shared file(s): image.png]
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If asked under UK law my Uni will block any release of these emails. Their case is that they were intended to be sentin confidence and that their release will do me harm (e.g. mental health) because the of the current levels of abuse. Plenty of evidence for that. The Uni have a duty of care. They also say that releasing one will set a precedent for releasing more so they all need to be blocked.
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Perhaps I need to get our lawyers to talk to your lawyers?
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Given it is both ends of the same set of emails.
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Yes. That's a good idea. The person they should talk to first is the USYD contact who is Kate Cumming ( ). She's very good.
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OK, thanks. Will pass this on.
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I am going to try to remember to use my gmail address for all such emails in future.
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They told me that doesn't matter if it is 'work' related. But, the very fact you using your Uni email shows that you are not hiding anything.