Chat message

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.708 [SLACK_000922] · slack_pm:msg:07433

Date: 2021-04-15 14:26
Type: chat message · slack
recipient: Robert F. Garry, Edward C. Holmes, Andrew Rambaut
speaker: Kristian G. Andersen

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Just imagine what the 'variant' landscape is going to look like in three years from now if we don't dramaticallydecrease transmission... We're going to have huge number of co-circulating lineages - now's the time to ensure that doesn't happen... Yeah, Anjana was great and I had a fun chat with her - worth talking to her as she knows a lot of the background.

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2021-04-15 13:55 Robert F. Garry open

Not too soon to be thinking V2 of the vaccines - yeah this is going to be a long game. May hit >1M cases per dayin the world not too long from now...
2021-04-15 13:57 Andrew Rambaut open

We are already - I am on a committee for recommending the candidates to be developed.
2021-04-15 13:58 Andrew Rambaut open

Currently recommending B.1.351 and B.1.1.7+E484K are taken forward - keeping options open for more.
2021-04-15 14:12 Andrew Rambaut open

@Eddie Holmes and @Kristian Andersen - you guys have talked to Anjana Ahuja for Jeremy's book? How was it?
2021-04-15 14:26 Kristian G. Andersen

Just imagine what the 'variant' landscape is going to look like in three years from now if we don't dramaticallydecrease transmission... We're going to have huge number of co-circulating lineages - now's the time to ensure that doesn't happen... Yeah, Anjana was great and I had a fun chat with her - worth talking to her as she knows a lot of the background.
2021-04-15 14:37 Edward C. Holmes open

Yes, she's good. It's going to be a great book.
2021-04-15 14:40 Edward C. Holmes open

@Kristian Andersen Just read you email. It's great! Thanks. I've just let Jackson have it with both barrels incl. the USyd legal team. Here's the actual statement from me about the miners (what was in an email to him that I did not know was going to be quoted and he never told me this): "The researchers at the WIV state that they have not closer virus to SARS-CoV-2 than RaTG13, and RaTG13 is clearly not the source of SARS-CoV-2 (it's far too distant). Tome, these statements ring true because they would have very likely already published the sequence of any such virus if it had existed, particularly a virus that they would then do more work on. As such, the miners story tells usnothing about the emergence of SARS-CoV-2."
2021-04-15 14:42 Kristian G. Andersen open

And you are absolutely right - "the miners story tells us nothing about the emergence of SARS-CoV-2". I definitely hope legal takes this on - libel, no question.
2021-04-15 14:44 Kristian G. Andersen open

@Robert Garry Archiving a PDF version here. [shared file(s): How the coronavirus origin story is being rewritten bya guerrilla Twitter group - CNET.pdf]

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