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Slack / Private Message Drop, p.608 [SLACK_000822] · slack_pm:msg:06365

Date: 2021-03-20 09:18
Type: chat message · slack
recipient: Kristian G. Andersen, Edward C. Holmes, Andrew Rambaut
speaker: Robert F. Garry

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Very good point - Daszak made a good one as well in the NPR - extrapolating the 3% serology to even a portion ofthe general population is a lot of sarbecovirus exposures - way more than a few lab ppl mist-netting at a few caves per year.

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2021-03-20 08:32 Robert F. Garry open

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-5008?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org&a mp;rfr_dat=cr_pub++0pubmed&"the real-world studies that detect viral RNA in the environment report very low levels, and few have isolated viable virus." In anticipation of the WHO report - which is likely to have a section about smoking racoon dogs - i think it's key. The most likely explanation for the high levels of virus on the grates under the animal cages is that the animals were infected. They were ab`le to grow virus out of 2 of the environmental samples.
2021-03-20 08:50 Robert F. Garry open

well done @Eddie Holmes https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/03/19/979314118/next-pandemic-scien tists-fear-another-coronavirus-could-jump-from-animals-to-hum
2021-03-20 08:59 Andrew Rambaut open

You can see why people want it to be a lab leak - this is much more scary.
2021-03-20 09:14 Kristian G. Andersen open

I think we mentioned this on our very first call... Nature is way way more scary than lab.
2021-03-20 09:18 Robert F. Garry

Very good point - Daszak made a good one as well in the NPR - extrapolating the 3% serology to even a portion ofthe general population is a lot of sarbecovirus exposures - way more than a few lab ppl mist-netting at a few caves per year.
2021-03-20 09:34 Kristian G. Andersen open

3% - that may well be every ~6 months given (a) exposures likely very low titer, and (b) seroreversion to CoVs. Ithink it's safe to say that a huge number of people are exposed to CoVs on a daily basis - and not just in China.
2021-03-20 09:34 Andrew Rambaut open

~5% serology seems to be the baseline false positive for just about everything - see Ebola in Sierra Leone etc.
2021-03-20 09:35 Kristian G. Andersen open

... in Africa :wink:. That 2-3% number actually has pretty good baselines
2021-03-20 09:36 Kristian G. Andersen open

Baseline sampled in e.g., Wuhan - of all places.

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