Chat message

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.819 [SLACK_001033] · slack_pm:msg:08547

Date: 2021-05-16 02:14
Type: chat message · slack
recipient: Kristian G. Andersen, Robert F. Garry, Edward C. Holmes
speaker: Andrew Rambaut
Topics: Intelligence community assessments Lab-leak / accidental release hypothesis Natural origin / zoonotic spillover

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The point about the unlikeliness of sampling the human transmissible virus by just sampling bats is totally key here. Sampling N bats taking them back to the lab and then exposing a few postdocs to each of the samples in turn is not going result in lab escape - vanishingly unlikely that SC2 was in the N bats in the first place (especially if they are from the same cave or area or time). The idea that 'lab escape' is plausible comes from the fact that 'escape' is plausible - it is plausible, it is 'lab capture'that isn't.

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2021-05-16 02:09 Andrew Rambaut open

@Kristian Andersen This to me is the real killer - a random sampling of bats in a few locations at a few times is not going to find it. And then you have to have the chance that that one makes it into a live culture.
2021-05-16 02:14 Andrew Rambaut

The point about the unlikeliness of sampling the human transmissible virus by just sampling bats is totally key here. Sampling N bats taking them back to the lab and then exposing a few postdocs to each of the samples in turn is not going result in lab escape - vanishingly unlikely that SC2 was in the N bats in the first place (especially if they are from the same cave or area or time). The idea that 'lab escape' is plausible comes from the fact that 'escape' is plausible - it is plausible, it is 'lab capture'that isn't.
2021-05-16 02:17 Edward C. Holmes open

Can you add that to Kristian's google doc - link above. It's coming on.

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