---
type: Conversation
title: Private channel session 831
description: "slack conversation, 17 messages, 2021-01-19."
tags:
  - conversation
  - slack
medium: slack
message_count: 17
started_at: "2021-01-19T00:24:28"
ended_at: "2021-01-19T02:20:32"
duration_seconds: 6964
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 17 messages spanning 1h 56m.

# Metadata

- **Started:** 2021-01-19T00:24:28
- **Ended:** 2021-01-19T02:20:32
- **Duration:** 1h 56m
- **Participants:** 2
- **Source:** [slack_pm](/sources/slack-pm.md)
- **Pages:** 420-423

# 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

**[2021-01-19T00:24:28] Edward C. Holmes:** From Tommy:

**[2021-01-19T00:25:13] Edward C. Holmes:** shared file(s): Pangos.pptx

**[2021-01-19T00:25:31] Edward C. Holmes:** "1. Yes, deletion at 69,70. 2. Yes. no deletion but HL at 69,70. Note human WH1 is HV at 69,70. 3. GD pangolin-CoV one is actually more genetic distant to human WH1 than than GX pangolin-CoV does. It is not deletion but with TK at 69,70. 4.For the existence of two copies in either GX-P2V (isolate) or GX-P4L (lung original sample), I have checked the read assembly, none of them contain both copies."

**[2021-01-19T00:26:40] Edward C. Holmes:** Of note, he did this completely independently of Bob...he just observed the same thing (but he's only looked at this site)

**[2021-01-19T00:43:08] Andrew Rambaut:** Email from Bogner after I queried the 10th Jan release of data on GISAID:

**[2021-01-19T00:43:08] Andrew Rambaut:** ```GISAID did indeed acknowledge a) the anniversary of learning that the respiratory illnesses reported in Wuhan were not caused by an influenza virus, but by a previously unknown human coronavirus, and b) the anniversary ofGISAID releasing the first whole-genome sequences and metadata. The January 10th date is not a "mistake". Rather, reports that those genomes were first made available on GISAID on a later date are wrong. Ever since GISAID went live in May 2008, whenever there is word of a noteworthy event in which influenza-like symptoms are noted, GISAID goes into "first-responder-mode" and awaits feedback from its colleagues involved inthe investigations. Last January was no…

**[2021-01-19T00:43:08] Andrew Rambaut:** This suggests the genomes were already publicly available for 24 hours when you posted to virological, Eddie.

**[2021-01-19T01:14:07] Edward C. Holmes:** Can he prove this: "George's alert gave us a chance to prepare, and gave our technical team time to set up an HTML area. We received the first 3x genomes and metadata in the afternoon of January 9th at 3:29 pm PST (2020-01-09 23:29 UTC). Two of these genomes, HB-01 and HB-05, were released on GISAID after processing, a little more than an hour later, at 4:41 pm PST and 4:44 pm PST (2020-01-10 0:41 UTC and 2020-01-10 0:44 UTC), respectively."

**[2021-01-19T01:19:22] Edward C. Holmes:** This is wrong: "Science News stated: "10 January Genetic sequence posted to virological.org", while Nature News states that the first sequence was posted on the website virological.org on 11 January 2020. Neither news organization had done even the most basic research, and did not realize that there were discrepancies in reports ofwhen and where the first coronavirus sequences were released to the world." That's just the time zone difference between Australia and elsewhere.

**[2021-01-19T01:24:12] Edward C. Holmes:** This note from HK also says the 12th as does the stuff from the WHO. [shared file(s): Screen Shot 2021-01-19 at 8.22.42 pm.png]

**[2021-01-19T01:25:04] Edward C. Holmes:** Why did not a single person in the world see the sequences on the 10th? Something does not make sense here at all.

**[2021-01-19T01:25:35] Andrew Rambaut:** The post was on the 11th at about 1am GMT - the posting has at the top the 10th because that is when we started towrite it (of course it was already the 11th in Australia and China then). So that is probably the confusion about your post.

**[2021-01-19T01:26:35] Andrew Rambaut:** I know. And no one at GISAID, CCDC, WHO made any announcement until the 12th. Plus they hounded Zhang for it?

**[2021-01-19T01:26:58] Edward C. Holmes:** I think he is bullshitting.

**[2021-01-19T01:27:13] Andrew Rambaut:** I posted a follow up to your post at 12pm on the 12th saying some genomes were up on GISAID.

**[2021-01-19T01:29:06] Edward C. Holmes:** Correct. I'm sure I remember looking on GISAID initially and not seeing anything and then looking again and they were there. That HK press release is very informative. I'm sorry, but I just don't believe him.

**[2021-01-19T02:20:32] Edward C. Holmes:** Very good to the minute timeline on FluTrackers - see pages 10-12: https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/-2019-ncovnew-coronavirus/china-2019-ncov/82183[...]news-thread-weeks-1-4-december-30-2019-january-25-2020/page10