Chat message

Slack / Private Message Drop, pp.831-832 [SLACK_001045] · slack_pm:msg:08657

Date: 2021-05-18 06:57
Type: chat message · slack
recipient: Kristian G. Andersen, Edward C. Holmes, Andrew Rambaut
speaker: Robert F. Garry
Topics: Biosafety and biosecurity Lab-leak / accidental release hypothesis

Recipients on this medium are inferred from channel membership, not per-message addressing.

WashPost has totally gone off the deep end. "Did some byproduct of the research leak, or did workers become inadvertently infected? Was the research carried out in less protected BSL-2 laboratories instead of the more secure BSL-4? Did Dr. Shi successfully manipulate a virus in the lab to add genetic features boosting affinity for human cells, as science journalist Nicholas Wade has suggested in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists? These and other questions have been met with stout denials and roadblocks from China. In response to the Science letter, which called for opening records of research labs, Dr. Shi said, "It's definitely not acceptable," and, "Who can provide an evidence that does not exist?" That brings us no closer to identifying the pandemic's origins. If the laboratory leak theory is wrong, China could easily clarify the situation by being more open and transparent. Instead, it acts as if there is something to hide." [shared file(s): Opinion _ Two possible theories of the pandemic's origins remain viable. The world needs to know. -The Washington Post.pdf]

Extracted statements

Rule-extracted, not adjudicated. The grade says what may be done with each one; read the document above before relying on any of them.

Statement	Grade	Attribution	Stance
Was the research carried out in less protected BSL-2 laboratories instead of the more secure BSL-4?	quoted / not their view	quoted_external inside quotation marks	questions
If the laboratory leak theory is wrong, China could easily clarify the situation by being more open and transparent.	quoted / not their view	quoted_external attribution frame: 'Dr. Shi said,'	asserts

Statement

Grade

Attribution

Stance

Was the research carried out in less protected BSL-2 laboratories instead of the more secure BSL-4?

quoted / not their view

quoted_external inside quotation marks

questions

If the laboratory leak theory is wrong, China could easily clarify the situation by being more open and transparent.

quoted / not their view

quoted_external attribution frame: 'Dr. Shi said,'

asserts

In context

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

2021-05-18 06:47 Andrew Rambaut open

Ask him whether he thinks there is ZERO chance that B.1.1.7 is more transmissible.
2021-05-18 06:49 Kristian G. Andersen open

@Eddie Holmes Me too.... Not responding to it.
2021-05-18 06:53 Kristian G. Andersen open

Yeah, do TWIV Bob. Vince did not contact me, but it's worth you going. The evidence doc will be useful...
2021-05-18 06:53 Robert F. Garry open

VR also thought that Bas-Congo virus was going to be the next Ebola - hopefully though an opportunity to counter some Bloomshit. Just need to not go quite as far with the rhetoric as Bill G. @Kristian Andersen may have to dosome coaching/intervention for some restraint. It actually is the problem - responding tit-for-tat to the likes of eDim -for example - obscures who the crazy person is.
2021-05-18 06:57 Robert F. Garry

WashPost has totally gone off the deep end. "Did some byproduct of the research leak, or did workers become inadvertently infected? Was the research carried out in less protected BSL-2 laboratories instead of the more secure BSL-4? Did Dr. Shi successfully manipulate a virus in the lab to add genetic features boosting affinity for human cells, as science journalist Nicholas Wade has suggested in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists? These and other questions have been met with stout denials and roadblocks from China. In response to the Science letter, which called for opening records of research labs, Dr. Shi said, "It's definitely not acceptable," and, "Who can provide an evidence that does not exist?" That brings us no closer to identifying the pandemic's origins. If the laboratory leak theory is wrong, China could easily clarify the situation by being more open and transparent. Instead, it acts as if there is something to hide." [shared file(s): Opinion _ Two possible theories of the pandemic's origins remain viable. The world needs to know. -The Washington Post.pdf]
2021-05-18 07:06 Robert F. Garry open

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/05/the-stakes-of-finding-covid-19s-origins
2021-05-18 07:11 Robert F. Garry open

Again the Politifact article - "The lab leak theory is distinct from the hypothesis that gain-of-function research created the new coronavirus, said Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of Harvard University and theMassachusetts Institute of Technology. The lab leak theory "can be as simple as a *researcher being infected by an animal or even another infected person*in remote areas, and then bringing it into one of the most densely populated cities on Earth." The gain-of-function hypothesis supposes both that a virus leaked from the Wuhan Institute and that scientists there tampered with it inways that could have made it more infective or deadly."
2021-05-18 07:14 Robert F. Garry open

So, if a virologist takes a field trip to Southern China and gets infected *FROM ANOTHER PERSON* that is somehow a Lab Leak. On the basis of this we want to shut down virologists and BSL3/4 labs. Why is this lunacy given an credence whatsoever?
2021-05-18 07:20 Andrew Rambaut open

Lunacy. What if it was a botanist or a palaeontologist?

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