---
type: Conversation
title: Private channel session 491
description: "slack conversation, 13 messages, 2020-10-20."
tags:
  - conversation
  - slack
medium: slack
message_count: 13
started_at: "2020-10-20T19:09:52"
ended_at: "2020-10-20T20:18:51"
duration_seconds: 4139
sources:
  - { id: slack_pm, resource: /sources/slack-pm.md, title: Slack / Private Message Drop, author: "process:senate-hsgac-release" }
generated: { by: randpaul-corpus-pipeline/1.0, at: "2026-08-01T12:42:27Z" }
status: stable
---

A slack conversation of 13 messages spanning 1h 8m.

# Metadata

- **Started:** 2020-10-20T19:09:52
- **Ended:** 2020-10-20T20:18:51
- **Duration:** 1h 8m
- **Participants:** 2
- **Source:** [slack_pm](/sources/slack-pm.md)
- **Pages:** 223-225

# Participants

* [Andrew Rambaut](/people/andrew-rambaut.md)
* [Edward C. Holmes](/people/edward-c-holmes.md)
* [Kristian G. Andersen](/people/kristian-g-andersen.md)
* [Robert F. Garry](/people/robert-f-garry.md)

# Transcript

**[2020-10-20T19:09:52] Edward C. Holmes:** @Kristian Andersen I just got this: Hello Professor Holmes My name is Thomas Crow. I'm a freelance science writer who writes for Crikey, Scitech's Particle website and NewZealand eScience Institute. SLACK_000438 I'm looking at writing a story on how they've recently updated the RaTG13 genome in the NCBI gene bank:https//www.ncbi.nim.nih.gov/nuccore/MN996532and Pete Doherty recommended you as a good person to contact about this.I saw some people claiming on Twitter that this is evidence that the virus was not naturally occurring and that it wasmanufactured in a lab. I don't know enough about reading genomes to parse this update, but I was wondering if you could have a look and let me know…

**[2020-10-20T19:09:52] Edward C. Holmes:** I've no interest in the story, but I see they updated RaTG13 on GenBank. Anything significant?

**[2020-10-20T19:09:52] Edward C. Holmes:** Bloody good timing. Not.

**[2020-10-20T19:09:52] Edward C. Holmes:** Only appears to be a few base changes by the look of it.

**[2020-10-20T19:09:52] Kristian G. Andersen:** They're writing about an article about a sequence being updated on Genbank? Fuck me. There is NO significance to this and it's not worth commenting on - ANYBODY who does this type of work knows that sequences get updated every now and again, especially when the sequences are (a) important and (b) had a few low-coverage regions that might have had assembly errors. This changes nothing - and as you say, only a handful of completely insignificant changes. This is 100% business as usual - move on.

**[2020-10-20T19:09:52] Kristian G. Andersen:** FWIW, the new sequences 100% match the consensus sequence I generated and shared on Virological, which might have been a better assembly than their own. It's possible that they just downloaded my bam files (which I made available on Google Cloud) and then they called the consensus from those. Again, all totally standard.

**[2020-10-20T19:09:52] Edward C. Holmes:** Yes, that's what I just told him. The tinfoil hats have got their diapers in a twist over it.

**[2020-10-20T19:31:08] Kristian G. Andersen:** Of course they have. Sooooooooo mysterious [unless you actually know how to do this type of work]

**[2020-10-20T19:32:14] Edward C. Holmes:** Next, Inspector Clouseau will probably notice it's your bam files and then a whole new conspiracy will start....

**[2020-10-20T19:32:58] Kristian G. Andersen:** Yup. Sorry - I faked those too. :man_in_business_suit_levitating:

**[2020-10-20T19:34:14] Edward C. Holmes:** Such a web of lies we have woven.

**[2020-10-20T19:35:28] Kristian G. Andersen:** Clever, really. All for the fat checks we're receiving from the CCP.

**[2020-10-20T20:18:51] Kristian G. Andersen:** Bloody hell - PREDICT made it into Biden's pandemic plan.... (which is very good otherwise): https://joebiden.com/covid19/