--- type: Conversation title: Private channel session 1144 description: "slack conversation, 35 messages, 2021-03-23." tags: - conversation - slack medium: slack message_count: 35 started_at: "2021-03-23T04:53:07" ended_at: "2021-03-23T10:31:59" duration_seconds: 20332 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 35 messages spanning 5h 38m. # Metadata - **Started:** 2021-03-23T04:53:07 - **Ended:** 2021-03-23T10:31:59 - **Duration:** 5h 38m - **Participants:** 3 - **Source:** [slack_pm](/sources/slack-pm.md) - **Pages:** 619-622 # 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 **[2021-03-23T04:53:07] Robert F. Garry:** PO1 was indeed the perfect red herring to distract the sleuths and detectives from uncovering the plan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylwMWpbv5Fk **[2021-03-23T04:57:09] Robert F. Garry:** But the true genus was throwing out RaTG13 - look how long it too until anyone suspected that "we" had SC2 all along! We being all of us "chaos agents" on Alina's wall. $40M not too bad Kristian! **[2021-03-23T05:19:16] Andrew Rambaut:** What do we make of this: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.22.436468v1.full.pdf **[2021-03-23T05:38:14] Robert F. Garry:** Plausible - Indel Region 2 and 3 - very divergent between SC2 and GDpangocov. **[2021-03-23T05:39:03] Robert F. Garry:** NTD is the receptor binding domain of many CoVs. **[2021-03-23T05:43:35] Robert F. Garry:** Not on this topic but related to "the Plan." Spoke with Betsy McKay again late yesterday- reading between the lines Ibelieve that our friend "Deep Throat" has surfaced again. She was aware of the email exchanges back in January -hinted that they had been shared with her from someone on the calls that thought "we" were a bit overly friendly tothe lab leak. **[2021-03-23T05:47:50] Robert F. Garry:** Back to the interesting paper - important to keep in mind that enhanced replication in cell culture doesn't necessarilytranslate to enhanced pathogenesis. As Andrew you've noted - it's all about the timing... **[2021-03-23T06:12:23] Andrew Rambaut:** Shows how modular the spike is though. **[2021-03-23T06:56:34] Kristian G. Andersen:** @Andrew Rambaut Never saw that money from the institution. Bastards. **[2021-03-23T07:00:40] Kristian G. Andersen:** I think people are majorly underestimating how flexible and mutational tolerant the spike is. **[2021-03-23T07:37:17] Robert F. Garry:** @Andrew Rambaut Rich bastards! :grinning: **[2021-03-23T07:50:56] Kristian G. Andersen:** ... as for Ralph DeepThroat, I don't think he's realizing that this actually helps us... Yes, as we said, we considereda lab leak a very real and serious possibility, no, that does not change our conclusions [add new stuff from WHO report]. **[2021-03-23T07:59:11] Robert F. Garry:** Me thinks that Alina may be taking her "victory lap" a few news cycles too soon. [shared file(s): image.png] **[2021-03-23T08:01:20] Robert F. Garry:** Not sure what Andrew told Lipstich, but ML Is still wrong - saying WIV had SC2 before the pandemic is a conspiracy theory plain and simple... **[2021-03-23T08:04:22] Andrew Rambaut:** Here is mine... https://twitter.com/arambaut/status/1374253839063334913 **[2021-03-23T08:19:45] Robert F. Garry:** TOTALLY AWESOME: [shared file(s): image.png] **[2021-03-23T08:21:22] Andrew Rambaut:** ML side-skipped the bit about it being absolutely a conspiracy theory. **[2021-03-23T08:36:18] Kristian G. Andersen:** Naughty. **[2021-03-23T08:41:18] Robert F. Garry:** Need to point out at every opportunity what Andrew just said to ML. If your Lab Leak hypothesis says that WIV hadSC2 [or SC2 lite] before the pandemic then it is a *conspiracy theory*. **[2021-03-23T09:12:09] Robert F. Garry:** Shi giving a talk over zoom - all of the Parisites are on. [shared file(s): image.png] **[2021-03-23T09:14:10] Kristian G. Andersen:** Are you on it Bob? Rutgers.... I'm sure Ebright (E-dumb will be his name) is miffed. **[2021-03-23T09:14:29] Robert F. Garry:** Yes - also Jesse Bloom logged in... **[2021-03-23T09:15:21] Robert F. Garry:** So is Alina **[2021-03-23T09:15:24] Kristian G. Andersen:** Hah, I can imagine. Keep us posted! **[2021-03-23T09:15:42] Kristian G. Andersen:** Screenshot of attendees? **[2021-03-23T09:21:07] Robert F. Garry:** Full of Parisites [shared file(s): image.png, image.png, image.png, image.png, image.png, image.png, image.png, image.png, image.png] **[2021-03-23T09:25:36] Kristian G. Andersen:** That truly is DRASTIC and friends. Although I don't see E-dumb or Yuri **[2021-03-23T09:27:54] Robert F. Garry:** Their questions are going to be something to watch for... **[2021-03-23T09:39:01] Robert F. Garry:** This will make them nuttier: [shared file(s): image.png] **[2021-03-23T09:59:35] Robert F. Garry:** More parisites showing up and a NYT reporter [shared file(s): image.png, image.png, image.png] **[2021-03-23T10:01:42] Kristian G. Andersen:** My goodness. Not exactly the A team, now, is it. **[2021-03-23T10:06:10] Robert F. Garry:** Wait- shouldn't we be shutting research down/ TOO DANGEROUS>>> [shared file(s): image.png, image.png] **[2021-03-23T10:07:47] Robert F. Garry:** She mentions - unreasonable speculation [shared file(s): image.png] **[2021-03-23T10:31:04] Robert F. Garry:** ```The head Parisite Jamie Metzl asked her about the military working at WIV - she said she was the director - part ofCAS - all research open and that information was incorrect. ``` **[2021-03-23T10:31:59] Kristian G. Andersen:** Haha, there you go - and he's SUCH an idiot