Chat message

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.597 [SLACK_000811] · slack_pm:msg:06236

Date: 2021-03-15 12:58
Type: chat message · slack
recipient: Kristian G. Andersen, Edward C. Holmes, Andrew Rambaut
speaker: Robert F. Garry
Topics: Natural origin / zoonotic spillover

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Still eagerly awaiting the WHO report. Hard to believe but Eddie's email about the smoking raccoon dog was only March 9. "the drain grates that the raccoon dogs were sitting on top of in your pictures correspond to the places inthe market where they found the lowest CoV Ct values (all of this is still confidential but will be in the report I think). Seems reasonable that those guys were infected and shedding virus in their feces, as Koopmans thought it was highly unlikely that that level of CoV RNA would be in those grates from human sources." Coming to realize that the2nd part of the email also interesting: "The WHO team also found frozen raccoon dog/ferret badger (they're unsureand I think are waiting for barcoding) carcasses still at the market, so it's possible that *some of the frozen fooddetections they've had could have come from the same source farm or processing plant as the live animals*." The*bolded* part would be another bullet fired from the smoking gun, if true. I've still got more questions: 1. Cases - Ihad to confirm that I was remembering correctly - were linked to the Huanan Market for over a MONTH.https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001316 Market closed and environmental samples from the Market taken 1Jan21.I don't think that high levels of virus would stick around on a grate for all that long a period of time. Does this mean based on when the the cases showed up that there were infected animals that market for several weeks? [shared file(s): image.png]

Links shared

journal https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001316

Extracted statements

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Statement	Grade	Attribution	Stance
Cases - Ihad to confirm that I was remembering correctly - were linked to the Huanan Market for over a MONTH.https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001316 Market closed and environmental samples from the Market taken 1Jan21.I don't think that high levels of virus would stick around on a grate for all that long a period of time.	quoted / not their view	quoted_external message body appears to be pasted content	asserts

Statement

Grade

Attribution

Stance

Cases - Ihad to confirm that I was remembering correctly - were linked to the Huanan Market for over a MONTH.https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001316 Market closed and environmental samples from the Market taken 1Jan21.I don't think that high levels of virus would stick around on a grate for all that long a period of time.

quoted / not their view

quoted_external message body appears to be pasted content

asserts

In context

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

2021-03-15 12:58 Robert F. Garry

Still eagerly awaiting the WHO report. Hard to believe but Eddie's email about the smoking raccoon dog was only March 9. "the drain grates that the raccoon dogs were sitting on top of in your pictures correspond to the places inthe market where they found the lowest CoV Ct values (all of this is still confidential but will be in the report I think). Seems reasonable that those guys were infected and shedding virus in their feces, as Koopmans thought it was highly unlikely that that level of CoV RNA would be in those grates from human sources." Coming to realize that the2nd part of the email also interesting: "The WHO team also found frozen raccoon dog/ferret badger (they're unsureand I think are waiting for barcoding) carcasses still at the market, so it's possible that *some of the frozen fooddetections they've had could have come from the same source farm or processing plant as the live animals*." The*bolded* part would be another bullet fired from the smoking gun, if true. I've still got more questions: 1. Cases - Ihad to confirm that I was remembering correctly - were linked to the Huanan Market for over a MONTH.https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001316 Market closed and environmental samples from the Market taken 1Jan21.I don't think that high levels of virus would stick around on a grate for all that long a period of time. Does this mean based on when the the cases showed up that there were infected animals that market for several weeks? [shared file(s): image.png]
2021-03-15 13:07 Robert F. Garry open

Question 2: Given that the virus in the environmental samples most likely came from animals in the market [I agree with Koopmans on this key point], and that the environmental samples are in fact SARS-CoV-2 (lineage B) does this mean that SC2 already fully formed has been circulating in nature? I'm having a hard time coming to any other conclusion, but would like to talked down from that as a conclusion and hear other possibilities.
2021-03-15 13:09 Kristian G. Andersen open

I don't understand the frozen food hypothesis. How did it get from bats to frozen foods and then to animals at the market? Doesn't make sense to me...
2021-03-15 13:14 Robert F. Garry open

I'm not sure it has to come from bats to the frozen foods to the animals. In fact, looks to me like SC2 is already inthose animals. If I understand the EgoHealth email to Eddie and what Koopsmans had leaked to the press over the past few weeks - she thinks that some of the frozen animal samples that are positive came from the same supplieras the suppler for the raccoon dogs. Some of the frozen meat also being raccoon dogs. Koopmans said it was likely that the meat itself was positive not the outside of the package.
2021-03-15 13:15 Kristian G. Andersen open

Still seems very strange to me - a batch of, say, frozen raccoon dogs are positive, but so are live raccoon dogs atthe market? Coming from the same supplier?

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