Chat message

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.245 · slack_pm:msg:02553

Date: 2020-10-30 17:09 (hour precision)
Type: chat message · slack
recipient: Robert F. Garry, Edward C. Holmes, Andrew Rambaut
speaker: Kristian G. Andersen
Topics: Wuhan Institute of Virology collaboration

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(and one pretty critical thing against the bonkers theories in the paper - wouldn't WIV have been mentioned in theBioSample had the virus come from there....? :man-shrugging:)

Extracted statements

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Statement	Grade	Attribution	Stance
(and one pretty critical thing against the bonkers theories in the paper - wouldn't WIV have been mentioned in theBioSample had the virus come from there....? :man-shrugging:)	own voice, substantive	speaker_own	asserts

Statement

Grade

Attribution

Stance

(and one pretty critical thing against the bonkers theories in the paper - wouldn't WIV have been mentioned in theBioSample had the virus come from there....? :man-shrugging:)

own voice, substantive

speaker_own

asserts

In context

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

2020-10-30 17:09 Kristian G. Andersen open

Yeah, this totally makes sense given the timeline. And yeah - George must have known. The ENA entries must have been created for some other purpose and backfilled. But it _is_ weird - because they only created those four on ENA and then nothing for a few weeks. SLACK_000459
2020-10-30 17:09 Edward C. Holmes open

We'll get to the bottom of it. That also provided me with Weijun Chen's email address so I'm just contacting him now.
2020-10-30 17:09 Kristian G. Andersen open

Okay, cool - I'm sure they're going to have a totally mundane explanation - like why RaTG13 was named that way cwink:
2020-10-30 17:09 Edward C. Holmes open

On it.
2020-10-30 17:09 Kristian G. Andersen

(and one pretty critical thing against the bonkers theories in the paper - wouldn't WIV have been mentioned in theBioSample had the virus come from there....? :man-shrugging:)
2020-10-30 17:09 Edward C. Holmes open

Totally!
2020-10-30 17:09 Edward C. Holmes open

Tommy says there are rumours that people knew earlier. My boy told me this: "As for the entry date, I have not read the long document yet, but that submission date is possible. They all talked about the sampling might occur much earlier (from different occasions). Therefore, I wouldn't be surprised if the sample is collected around that time (Dec 10th, not too bad). And I wouldn't be surprised if they have "changed" the sampling date". Nothing officially. Atworse it means that the China CDC must have known earlier which will throw the shit badly on them, particularly George. May be not a bad thing. Does not impact origins in any way as I see it.
2020-10-30 17:09 Edward C. Holmes open

Tommy has 6 SARS-CoV-2 sero-positive pangolins that are currently being metagenomically sequenced. The other news - which is obviously strictly confidential - is that someone in China (Tong?) has apparently obtained a MERS-like virus from a pangolin.
2020-10-30 17:09 Kristian G. Andersen open

Very interesting, makes sense. Based on this, the most likely explanation is that they probably had the very earliest patients sequenced around Dec 10th and then somebody slammed the brakes. The samples we have that are dated12/26 are likely earlier then - and actually supported by the sequences themselves (one of these appear basal). The root is funky too - @Andrew Rambaut, I wonder if uncertainty in the dates around the very earliest samples could help explain that? Probably... (although, last I checked, the root is still funky if you remove all the dates).

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