Chat message

Slack / Private Message Drop, pp.488-489 [SLACK_000702] · slack_pm:msg:05098

Date: 2021-02-06 04:10
Type: chat message · slack
recipient: Kristian G. Andersen, Edward C. Holmes, Andrew Rambaut
speaker: Robert F. Garry
Topics: WHO and international investigation

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

"A further surprise was in store. Chan and her colleague Dr Shing Hei Zhan scrutinised the evolutions of SARS-CoV-1 (the cause of the 2003 SARS epidemic) and SARS-CoV-2 (the cause of the current pandemic) in the early months of their respective outbreaks and found that while the former mutated rapidly in early human cases, asthe virus adapted to its new host, the latter did not. This implies that the virus causing Covid-19 was already well adapted to infecting human beings, a point that was also suggested by the World Health Organization in its global study on the origins of Covid-19, published in November. There are three possible explanations for this. The first is that the virus had circulated, undetected, in people for months. The second is that the virus was already highly adept at human-to-human transmission, even while it was still in bats or other animals. The third is that it had become adapted in human cells, or humanised animals, in alaboratory."

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
This implies that the virus causing Covid-19 was already well adapted to infecting human beings, a point that was also suggested by the World Health Organization in its global study on the origins of Covid-19, published in November.	quoted / not their view	quoted_external inside quotation marks	asserts

Statement

Grade

Attribution

Stance

This implies that the virus causing Covid-19 was already well adapted to infecting human beings, a point that was also suggested by the World Health Organization in its global study on the origins of Covid-19, published in November.

quoted / not their view

quoted_external inside quotation marks

asserts

In context

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

2021-02-06 04:10 Robert F. Garry

"A further surprise was in store. Chan and her colleague Dr Shing Hei Zhan scrutinised the evolutions of SARS-CoV-1 (the cause of the 2003 SARS epidemic) and SARS-CoV-2 (the cause of the current pandemic) in the early months of their respective outbreaks and found that while the former mutated rapidly in early human cases, asthe virus adapted to its new host, the latter did not. This implies that the virus causing Covid-19 was already well adapted to infecting human beings, a point that was also suggested by the World Health Organization in its global study on the origins of Covid-19, published in November. There are three possible explanations for this. The first is that the virus had circulated, undetected, in people for months. The second is that the virus was already highly adept at human-to-human transmission, even while it was still in bats or other animals. The third is that it had become adapted in human cells, or humanised animals, in alaboratory."
2021-02-06 04:11 Robert F. Garry open

shared file(s): Did the Covid-19 virus really escape from a Wuhan lab_.pdf
2021-02-06 04:13 Robert F. Garry open

shared file(s): Did the Covid-19 virus really escape from a Wuhan lab_.pdf
2021-02-06 04:15 Robert F. Garry open

Alina/Ridley's grand expose. She's still pushing her flawed "it had become adapted in human cells, or humanised animals, in a laboratory."
2021-02-06 04:28 Robert F. Garry open

In a significant change from a year ago, a growing number of top experts - including (ordered alphabetically by last name) Drs Francois Balloux, Ralph S Baric, Trevor Bedford, Jesse Bloom, Bruno Canard, Etienne Decroly, Richard H Ebright, Michael B Eisen, Gareth Jones, Filippa Lentzos, Michael Z Lin, Marc Lipsitch, Stuart A Newman, Rasmus Nielsen, Megan J Palmer, Nikolai Petrovsky, Angela Rasmussen and David A Relman - have stated publicly (several in early 2020) that a lab leak remains a plausible scientific hypothesis to be investigated, regardless of how likely or unlikely.

Full conversation →