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Slack / Private Message Drop, p.909 [SLACK_001123] · slack_pm:msg:09429

Date: 2021-06-02 16:09 (hour precision)
Type: chat message · slack
recipient: Kristian G. Andersen, Robert F. Garry, Edward C. Holmes
speaker: Andrew Rambaut
Topics: Natural origin / zoonotic spillover Lab-leak / accidental release hypothesis WHO and international investigation

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

OK. Here is a stab at the opening paragraph and structure of the letter. I think this point (that lab escape is not the point) is still worth making as it is not well understood. All of the other stuff (FCSs etc is just irrelevant if the virus was never there in the first place). If people want to say 'well what if... humanised', 'well what if... GOF' etc then let them.It is the grandstanding 'leaks are plausible' scientists that I think we should put on the spot here. ```Since the first reports of a new SARS-like human coronavirus in late December 2019 in Wuhan, China, and as aresult of the subsequent pandemic, there has been intense global interest in understanding how and where SARS-CoV-2 first infected humans. Both preceding and following the recent WHO-convened "Global Study ofOrigins of SARS-CoV-2", primary interest has coalesced on two seemingly competing hypotheses: the "lab escape" scenario and one of natural "zoonotic" emergence. However with the focus on escape and arguments of plausibility based on prior instances of pathogens leaking from laboratory environments, proponents omit to consider the othercomponent of this hypothesis, "lab capture" - the plausibility that SARS-CoV-2 was ever in a laboratory from whichto escape in the first place. In essence the "lab-capture-escape" scenario is just a very specific conjecture about the exact nature and route of a zoonotic spillover. In the absence of any documentary evidence at all, we believe the likelihood that a human-transmissible bat coronavirus would ever have been present in a laboratory is so unlikely that the plausibility of escape is irrelevant. [Discuss all the zoonosis stuff... intermediate hosts... animal exposure etc] [Bring it back to the tiny prior probability of capture given how rare human transmissible viruses are in bats][finish with the implied cover-up by the leak-proponents, the pointlessness of demanding anything and the fact the natural origins need to be the focus of our time]```I haven't put this in the document because I think we (the executive committee) should make a decision about whether we go forward with this.

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
In essence the "lab-capture-escape" scenario is just a very specific conjecture about the exact nature and route of a zoonotic spillover.	quoted / not their view	quoted_external inside quotation marks	asserts

Statement

Grade

Attribution

Stance

In essence the "lab-capture-escape" scenario is just a very specific conjecture about the exact nature and route of a zoonotic spillover.

quoted / not their view

quoted_external inside quotation marks

asserts

In context

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

2021-06-02 16:09 Kristian G. Andersen open

Hah, yeah, that ink blot test is :100: spot on. These emails fit whatever narrative you believe.
2021-06-02 16:09 Kristian G. Andersen open

I don't know what Trevor is on about - the first tweet in that thread is outright false: "We now have mainstream scientific opinions that largely range between "lab leak can be dismissed" and "both zoonosis and lab leak are viable" Eh, no - nobody said we could dismiss anything. We said it was unsupported and highly unlikely. Also, we're not talking about uninformed priors here - there's _actual_ data, which Trevor knows well.
2021-06-02 16:09 Andrew Rambaut open

Confidentially - it will be in the next PHE Tech Brief - but it is not good. Modellers have really consolidated around a50% transmissibility advantage over B.1.1.7 (I am not sure I am quite comfortable with that yet because there islarge heterogeneity of R in time and place - which makes less sense if it is all due to an inherent advantage). Also evidence of higher rate of hospital admissions from two independent studies. And evidence of a significant vaccine effect. Really not good. I just hope some of this is not the case.Is there any evidence of growth in the USA? If the above is true I would imagine it is going to flare up all over the place.
2021-06-02 16:09 Andrew Rambaut open

"Hello, My name is Daniel Payne. I'm a reporter with Just the News. I hope you're well. I have been reviewing the major release of Dr. Anthony Fauci's emails from last year. In one sequence of emails Inoticed you were part of an early February 2020 conference call involving several experts discussing what appearsto be, at least in part, gain-of-function research. Can you offer any insight into what that conversation was about? What was discussed in it? What was concluded? Are you able to provide any documentation from the phone call? Thanks so much. I'm also at i.DanielYeah right.
2021-06-02 16:09 Andrew Rambaut

OK. Here is a stab at the opening paragraph and structure of the letter. I think this point (that lab escape is not the point) is still worth making as it is not well understood. All of the other stuff (FCSs etc is just irrelevant if the virus was never there in the first place). If people want to say 'well what if... humanised', 'well what if... GOF' etc then let them.It is the grandstanding 'leaks are plausible' scientists that I think we should put on the spot here. ```Since the first reports of a new SARS-like human coronavirus in late December 2019 in Wuhan, China, and as aresult of the subsequent pandemic, there has been intense global interest in understanding how and where SARS-CoV-2 first infected humans. Both preceding and following the recent WHO-convened "Global Study ofOrigins of SARS-CoV-2", primary interest has coalesced on two seemingly competing hypotheses: the "lab escape" scenario and one of natural "zoonotic" emergence. However with the focus on escape and arguments of plausibility based on prior instances of pathogens leaking from laboratory environments, proponents omit to consider the othercomponent of this hypothesis, "lab capture" - the plausibility that SARS-CoV-2 was ever in a laboratory from whichto escape in the first place. In essence the "lab-capture-escape" scenario is just a very specific conjecture about the exact nature and route of a zoonotic spillover. In the absence of any documentary evidence at all, we believe the likelihood that a human-transmissible bat coronavirus would ever have been present in a laboratory is so unlikely that the plausibility of escape is irrelevant. [Discuss all the zoonosis stuff... intermediate hosts... animal exposure etc] [Bring it back to the tiny prior probability of capture given how rare human transmissible viruses are in bats][finish with the implied cover-up by the leak-proponents, the pointlessness of demanding anything and the fact the natural origins need to be the focus of our time]```I haven't put this in the document because I think we (the executive committee) should make a decision about whether we go forward with this.

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