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Slack / Private Message Drop, p.242 [SLACK_000456] · slack_pm:msg:02520

Date: 2020-10-30 15:23
Type: chat message · slack
recipient: Kristian G. Andersen, Robert F. Garry, Andrew Rambaut
speaker: Edward C. Holmes
Topics: Intelligence community assessments

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

The idea that 2-3 weeks before all this it was known at a commercial sequencing company based in a different city seems untenable to me. Nor does it fit the time-line of the first patients seen by the doctors (sorry to include awikipedia link): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Wenliang

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reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Wenliang

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
The idea that 2-3 weeks before all this it was known at a commercial sequencing company based in a different city seems untenable to me.	needs context	uncertain explicit hedge	asserts

Statement

Grade

Attribution

Stance

The idea that 2-3 weeks before all this it was known at a commercial sequencing company based in a different city seems untenable to me.

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.

2020-10-30 15:04 Kristian G. Andersen open

So if those BioSamples were created on, say 12/25, then that's totally what you'd expect - but we're talking two weeks before there was any (official) realization of a novel coronavirus.
2020-10-30 15:05 Edward C. Holmes open

Yes, I don't get it at all. I'm contacting people now. But 2 weeks also sounds WAY too far in advance!
2020-10-30 15:06 Kristian G. Andersen open

Yeah, definitely - very interesting.
2020-10-30 15:21 Edward C. Holmes open

Company A is Vision Medicals. I don't believe for a nanosec that BGI knew there was a pandemic virus on Dec. 10th. That time-line makes zero sense with any known timeline, the epidemiological history of the outbreak, nor what was on Chinese social media. Nor would WIV have anything to do with BGI. The best time-line is here and confirmed my colleagues in China: https://apnews.com/article/3c061794970661042b18d5aeaaed9fae
2020-10-30 15:23 Edward C. Holmes

The idea that 2-3 weeks before all this it was known at a commercial sequencing company based in a different city seems untenable to me. Nor does it fit the time-line of the first patients seen by the doctors (sorry to include awikipedia link): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Wenliang
2020-10-30 15:24 Edward C. Holmes open

However, I'm checking with colleagues there now.
2020-10-30 15:33 Kristian G. Andersen open

One explanation is that BGI created these four BioSamples for a different purpose and then backfilled with the SARS2 data when they generated it. But I don't think there's any ambiguity that these were created on 12/10 - onlywe don't know for what purpose (so could have been for a novel coronavirus, could have been for something else -the metadata describing the BioSample very likely weren't entered until the data were deposited).
2020-10-30 15:35 Kristian G. Andersen open

I would love to see the full submission history for these entries - Andrew, dig a little :wink:
2020-10-30 15:51 Kristian G. Andersen open

Eddie, it's your paper... :wink: https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(20)30251-8/fulltext I assume this is the same Weijun Chen who's the submitter of the data and is from BGI.

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