Chat message

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.539 [SLACK_000753] · slack_pm:msg:05620

Date: 2021-02-22 08:51
Type: chat message · slack
recipient: Kristian G. Andersen, Robert F. Garry, Edward C. Holmes
speaker: Andrew Rambaut

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

Also I don't think that a human virus getting into mink is a particularly risky think other than potentially exposing more people or creating a reservoir. It isn't going to get more human adapted.

In context

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2021-02-22 08:45 Kristian G. Andersen open

Yeah, San Diego... I was asked to be on that program too - but declined.
2021-02-22 08:47 Kristian G. Andersen open

Devi is :100: though, so I'm sure she didn't exactly intend to stir the pot of conspiracy... No doubt large-scale factoryfarming is risky from a natural emergence perspective though - but calling them "bioweapon factories" is just dumb.
2021-02-22 08:48 Andrew Rambaut open

You can't have a 'natural' bioweapon - by definition
2021-02-22 08:51 Kristian G. Andersen open

Hah, good point.
2021-02-22 08:51 Andrew Rambaut

Also I don't think that a human virus getting into mink is a particularly risky think other than potentially exposing more people or creating a reservoir. It isn't going to get more human adapted.
2021-02-22 08:53 Kristian G. Andersen open

I don't know - having a parallel epizootic with god knows what kind of selection pressures operating is to be avoidedat all cost. Mink farming is typically also associated with other farming - creating risks of further epizootics.
2021-02-22 08:59 Andrew Rambaut open

I agree about the zoonosis as a route from things like bats into humans especially as these mustelids seem such good models for humans. But I just can't get excited about animal transmission as a source of variants.
2021-02-22 09:01 Andrew Rambaut open

Would need to be some funky epistatic interactions to get somewhere that is not readily reachable in humans in the first place.
2021-02-22 09:25 Robert F. Garry open

I'd like to see how Dougless and prePhil do in minks/ferrets - are they like the monkeys? Also not having mink farmsis not going to change "quality of life" for anyone except people like Ivanka and of course the mink farmers. Raise ferrets instead and let's use them to figure out better Cov/flu vaccines and drugs.

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