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1. 2021-05-12 23:09 Kristian G. Andersen open
   Oh, David got specific - let's crush their arguments...
2. 2021-05-12 23:13 Edward C. Holmes
   I don't think you an even call those arguments. I've got no stomach for a long email fight. I think we can say just saywe considered all those points in January 2020 but then decided to do some science.
3. 2021-05-12 23:15 Kristian G. Andersen open
   • First cases connected to market • Triangulation of early cases and deaths • Virus found at the market - https://twitter.com/K_G_Andersen/status/1377462189632614404?s=20 • Two different lineages circulating early - https://virological.org/t/early-appearance-of-two-distinct-genomic-lineages-of-sars-[...]ldlife-markets-suggests-sars-cov-2-has-a-natural-origin/691/1• Links back to wildlife farming in e.g., Yunnan• Some evidence of wild animals at market• Very convoluted route from cave > lab > researcher > market (and hugely unlikely somebody wouldmagically find the next pandemic virus)• Andrews equations above - love some good math• No evidence of genetic markers one might expect from lab experiments (they _always_ use the samereagents/methods)• Would require conspiracy• Highly similar viruses found in multiple species in multiple places• ACE2 + FCS combo (all found in nature) > super-charged for emergence• Sero prevalence studies showing very frequent encounters• Long evolutionary gap to Yunnan bats• Yunnan bats look close because they mainly sampled Yunnan bats• No reason not a publish a closer virus before the pandemic• "Closest known (not that close) viral relatives in nature are ~1000 miles from Wuhan" - So the known relatives are not the close relatives and thus the fact they are far away is expected• Virus is adapted to spread in multiple hosts (e.g. mink).• Same RBD found in pangolins so it is nature• FCS also 100% a natural feature: https://twitter.com/K_G_Andersen/status/1391507230848032772?s=20• Serology survey from WIV shows no exposure• WIV, authorities, Zhengli, and other scientists denied having done any work on the virus prior to the outbreak• Zoonotic origin has a huge advantage in its favor in that it naturally selects for human transmissible viruses - the accidental lab escape idea has no such selection - samples are collected from bats over a limited time period and limited geographical area• SARS1 also associated with animal market• The closest relative to SARS-CoV-2 is not from the WIV: i.e. it's not RaTG13 because sequence similarity varies somuch across the genome because of recombination. RpYN06 is closest in most genes.• No mention of SARS-CoV-2 in old theses from WIV, including from 2019.https://twitter.com/TheSeeker268/status/1392575191763472388?s=20
4. 2021-05-12 23:18 Kristian G. Andersen open
   Yeah, not arguments - just speculations from him. I think it's worth engaging - clearly they haven't really thought that hard about it.Probably also worth having a little cheat-list of direct evidence for natural emergence because I see this coming upmore and more. The only thing we're missing is an intermediate host - that may or may exist - or even existed.
5. 2021-05-12 23:19 Edward C. Holmes open
   Let's sleep on it an do it carefully
6. 2021-05-12 23:21 Andrew Rambaut open
   You don't really need to get into the individual arguments I think - just address the non equivalence of saying there isno evidence for either hypothesis - one has a prior probability that is vanishingly small so requires at least some evidence the natural hypothesis is everything else.

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