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Slack / Private Message Drop, pp.131-132 [SLACK_000345] · slack_pm:msg:01349

Date: 2020-08-08 20:11
Type: chat message · slack
recipient: Robert F. Garry, Edward C. Holmes, Andrew Rambaut
speaker: Kristian G. Andersen

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It's getting really dumb.. Love the "Evolution has been able to produce people that can argue on Twitter but not 4amino acids that continually come and go" :wink:. I have used a similar phrase many times with journalists - "if it's hard to imagine that a virus could have gained 12 bases, just remember that you and I are currently discussing this'mystery' via Zoom, beaming our voices to the space and back. Evolution did that". SLACK_000346

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2020-08-08 20:11 Kristian G. Andersen

It's getting really dumb.. Love the "Evolution has been able to produce people that can argue on Twitter but not 4amino acids that continually come and go" :wink:. I have used a similar phrase many times with journalists - "if it's hard to imagine that a virus could have gained 12 bases, just remember that you and I are currently discussing this'mystery' via Zoom, beaming our voices to the space and back. Evolution did that". SLACK_000346
2020-08-08 20:11 Robert F. Garry open

Dear Dr. Garry, It has been several months since we last spoke -- I hope you are well. NBC News correspondent Janis MacKey Frayer was granted a tour of the WIV BSL 4 labs on Friday -- the first international correspondent to do so since the Covid outbreak. She will file for The Today Show tomorrow, Monday.I know from your NATURE article on the origins of the virus and our conversations that you and your co-authors concluded that it is improbable that the virus was manufactured in a lab. Because that was several months ago now (feels like a lifetime ago!),I wanted to get an update from you as to whether you still feel that it is impossible orimprobable that the outbreak started from the WIV labs in any form. (Manufactured or just "escaped" due to an errorof some sort.)I know you may very well feel that this has been "asked and answered" many times, but in the interests of accuracy Iwanted to check in before this airs tomorrow morning. Kind regards,Amy Amy PerretteProducerNBC News London
2020-08-08 20:11 Robert F. Garry open

I thought the Today Show had a science contributor?
2020-08-08 20:11 Kristian G. Andersen open

Hah! And this is pretty interesting...
2020-08-08 20:11 Edward C. Holmes open

I got the same

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