Chat message

In context

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

1. 2021-06-21 17:14 Andrew Rambaut open
   My reply about the rooting: ```But I don't really see any of this as relevant other than some interesting epi and timing - it looks to me that the ideas we had right at the beginning that this was live animal population in markets, starting multiple chains ofinfection until 3 of them really kicked off. The evidence of live animals in these markets seem conclusive that here isa hugely explanatory hypothesis. The lab-escape idea is a non starter unless there was actually evidence of 'lab-capture'. Anyone can see that escape has prior. The problem is without evidence that SC2 was in the lab in the first place just asserting it was is anon-starter. There are vastly more ways that live viruses can reach markets in Wuhan over nearly 2 decades than the chance that a few scientists found one in a bat (let alone cultured and stored in secret without sequencing it).Jesse, Fred and the others are going to make a huge fuss but there will never be anyway of scientifically getting evidence to support their idea - it basically requires documentary evidence which will not exist either way (either itdoesn't exist or it was destroyed).```
2. 2021-06-21 17:18 Andrew Rambaut open
   @Eddie Holmes Eddie - will you take control of the document again? I have been over it and removed some of the added waffle, tried to tighten it up a bit. Need to stop it wandering again. But I think it is looking really good.
3. 2021-06-21 17:19 Kristian G. Andersen open
   It seems to me that there are four main issues here with his / Rasmus' thinking: • They assume the sequence closest to RaTG13 must be the root - that is incorrect as we see _a lot_ of reversions.• They assume A > B and that that happened in the human population. We don't know that - A > B or B > A(former more parsimonious) and the MRCA may _very_ well be in animals, not humans.• They assume a single introduction into the human population.• They assume non-biased sampling from both the Huanan market and elsewhere - we know this definitely isn't true. There might _very_ well have been Lineage A circulating at the Huanan market, but we didn't capture it because ofbias - e.g., SSE of Lineage B at that market. The idea that _any_ of the recent data make Huanan a less likely place for a spill-over is hugely flawed IMO - totally wrong.
4. 2021-06-21 17:19 Andrew Rambaut open
   @Andrew Rambaut I have lazily put in a few 'REF's where it seem to need it. If they are still there tomorrow, I will gohunting.
5. 2021-06-21 17:24 Edward C. Holmes
   Sure. I'm out of town this week and don't have much time to do much, but I'll take a look later. Is there anything about the rooting in the paper? I think we had probably add a line about this...I agree with Kristian's logic - I don't see why the sequence closest to RaTG13 is the root.
6. 2021-06-21 17:25 Andrew Rambaut open
   Be good to preempt them
7. 2021-06-21 17:26 Edward C. Holmes open
   Have you seen Sergei's Italian job?
8. 2021-06-21 17:27 Andrew Rambaut open
   No?
9. 2021-06-21 17:27 Kristian G. Andersen open
   The problem with the rooting is that it's very complex so not sure we want to add it - working on a paper with Joel and Marc that should settle this. But it's just so frustrating to see their naiveté - especially since they know a lot more about rooting than I do. But this one is obvious...

Full conversation →