Chat message

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.224 · slack_pm:msg:02321

Date: 2020-10-20 19:09 (hour precision)
Type: chat message · slack
recipient: Robert F. Garry, Edward C. Holmes, Andrew Rambaut
speaker: Kristian G. Andersen
Topics: Intelligence community assessments

Recipients on this medium are inferred from channel membership, not per-message addressing.

They're writing about an article about a sequence being updated on Genbank? Fuck me. There is NO significance to this and it's not worth commenting on - ANYBODY who does this type of work knows that sequences get updated every now and again, especially when the sequences are (a) important and (b) had a few low-coverage regions that might have had assembly errors. This changes nothing - and as you say, only a handful of completely insignificant changes. This is 100% business as usual - move on.

Extracted statements

Rule-extracted, not adjudicated. The grade says what may be done with each one; read the document above before relying on any of them.

Statement	Grade	Attribution	Stance
There is NO significance to this and it's not worth commenting on - ANYBODY who does this type of work knows that sequences get updated every now and again, especially when the sequences are (a) important and (b) had a few low-coverage regions that might have had assembly errors.	needs context	uncertain explicit hedge	asserts

Statement

Grade

Attribution

Stance

There is NO significance to this and it's not worth commenting on - ANYBODY who does this type of work knows that sequences get updated every now and again, especially when the sequences are (a) important and (b) had a few low-coverage regions that might have had assembly errors.

needs context

uncertain explicit hedge

asserts

In context

A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.

2020-10-20 19:09 Edward C. Holmes open

@Kristian Andersen I just got this: Hello Professor Holmes My name is Thomas Crow. I'm a freelance science writer who writes for Crikey, Scitech's Particle website and NewZealand eScience Institute. SLACK_000438 I'm looking at writing a story on how they've recently updated the RaTG13 genome in the NCBI gene bank:https//www.ncbi.nim.nih.gov/nuccore/MN996532and Pete Doherty recommended you as a good person to contact about this.I saw some people claiming on Twitter that this is evidence that the virus was not naturally occurring and that it wasmanufactured in a lab. I don't know enough about reading genomes to parse this update, but I was wondering if you could have a look and let me know if there's any significance you can see (apparently there's been a couple of base pair changes).I don't expect you to read through the whole thing! I'd just like your take on anything that jumps out at you or if you have a possible explanation as to why the gene bank was updated. I think it would be good to address this by anexpert before rumours start picking up.Thank you.Thomas CrowScience Writer_witterLinkedIn
2020-10-20 19:09 Edward C. Holmes open

I've no interest in the story, but I see they updated RaTG13 on GenBank. Anything significant?
2020-10-20 19:09 Edward C. Holmes open

Bloody good timing. Not.
2020-10-20 19:09 Edward C. Holmes open

Only appears to be a few base changes by the look of it.
2020-10-20 19:09 Kristian G. Andersen

They're writing about an article about a sequence being updated on Genbank? Fuck me. There is NO significance to this and it's not worth commenting on - ANYBODY who does this type of work knows that sequences get updated every now and again, especially when the sequences are (a) important and (b) had a few low-coverage regions that might have had assembly errors. This changes nothing - and as you say, only a handful of completely insignificant changes. This is 100% business as usual - move on.
2020-10-20 19:09 Kristian G. Andersen open

FWIW, the new sequences 100% match the consensus sequence I generated and shared on Virological, which might have been a better assembly than their own. It's possible that they just downloaded my bam files (which I made available on Google Cloud) and then they called the consensus from those. Again, all totally standard.
2020-10-20 19:09 Edward C. Holmes open

Yes, that's what I just told him. The tinfoil hats have got their diapers in a twist over it.
2020-10-20 19:31 Kristian G. Andersen open

Of course they have. Sooooooooo mysterious [unless you actually know how to do this type of work]
2020-10-20 19:32 Edward C. Holmes open

Next, Inspector Clouseau will probably notice it's your bam files and then a whole new conspiracy will start....

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