Chat message

Slack / Private Message Drop, pp.282-283 [SLACK_000496] · slack_pm:msg:02935

Date: 2020-11-27 13:00
Type: chat message · slack
recipient: Kristian G. Andersen, Robert F. Garry, Andrew Rambaut
speaker: Edward C. Holmes

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

Bob, that arxiv thing was published some months ago in some French journal. Nothing new. The SCMP also contacted me. I've not replied yet but I'm going to tell them to fuck-off as they pulled this through the Freedom ofInformation act which really pisses me off. Clearly the Italian thing is nutso and if this is pushed the whole WHO thing will loose all credibility as you say, not that it has much any way. I think you can bet good money what when the Chinese find the animal origin George will have in Nature/NEJM without any involvement of WHO. The latter will likely just have to deliver a fairly meaningless report.

In context

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

2020-11-27 12:44 Andrew Rambaut open

My whole group follow him for the Twitter pearls.
2020-11-27 13:00 Edward C. Holmes

Bob, that arxiv thing was published some months ago in some French journal. Nothing new. The SCMP also contacted me. I've not replied yet but I'm going to tell them to fuck-off as they pulled this through the Freedom ofInformation act which really pisses me off. Clearly the Italian thing is nutso and if this is pushed the whole WHO thing will loose all credibility as you say, not that it has much any way. I think you can bet good money what when the Chinese find the animal origin George will have in Nature/NEJM without any involvement of WHO. The latter will likely just have to deliver a fairly meaningless report.
2020-11-27 13:44 Robert F. Garry open

Thanks Eddie - hard to keep up with the cheap shots at PO1. I do recall some spurious report of Italian serorectivityin 2019 https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-italy-timing/researchers-find-coronavirus-was-circulatingin-italy-earlier-than-th I- that's cross-reactivity plus hype and another example of amateur hour. Lots of people are finding SARS2 seroreactivity here and there - not a big shock really given that we have had at least 4 CoVs and likely a lot more spreading in humans for a long time.
2020-11-27 14:08 Edward C. Holmes open

Indeed - lots of cheap shots at PO1. I already complained to the French authors about aspects of that paper and some clear errors. If I remember, the Italians found 14% seropositivity in September 2019. Yeah, right.

Full conversation →