---
type: Conversation
title: Private channel session 1200
description: "slack conversation, 13 messages, 2021-04-05."
tags:
  - conversation
  - slack
medium: slack
message_count: 13
started_at: "2021-04-05T19:18:41"
ended_at: "2021-04-05T20:02:02"
duration_seconds: 2601
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 0h 43m.

# Metadata

- **Started:** 2021-04-05T19:18:41
- **Ended:** 2021-04-05T20:02:02
- **Duration:** 0h 43m
- **Participants:** 3
- **Source:** [slack_pm](/sources/slack-pm.md)
- **Pages:** 679-681

# 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

**[2021-04-05T19:18:41] Robert F. Garry:** Brilliant Eddie - Well done!

**[2021-04-05T19:41:00] Edward C. Holmes:** He did a good job. Of course, I meant to say that I might NOT be allowed back into China...

**[2021-04-05T20:02:00] Edward C. Holmes:** Got this from another journo....very interesting:

**[2021-04-05T20:02:02] Edward C. Holmes:** I've been following the wildlife farms part of this from the start [and before that on other stories]. It does not appear there was much of an effort to check captive bred wildlife facilities. 31 farms in Hubei, with about 3,000 animals, were checked. 27,000 sample from "wildlife" across China, but a large part of that appears to be zoo animals if you check the annexes. There's one prefecture with about four counties in it in Western Hubei that had 290 farms and450,000 animals alone at the start of the outbreak. Why would Chinese authorities not check more farms but prepared to shut down so many of them [on the raising for meat consumption side]? Anyone here you think would beable to…

**[2021-04-05T20:02:02] Kristian G. Andersen:** Yeah, this is very interesting. I do think there's a lot missing from the "market" aspect of this whole story - did they ordid they not have live mammals? Where exactly were animals sourced from? Were all those farms tested?

**[2021-04-05T20:02:02] Edward C. Holmes:** I wouldn't be at all surprised if they've already found out exactly there this virus comes from.

**[2021-04-05T20:02:02] Kristian G. Andersen:** I wouldn't be surprised if they have some very strong clues... But whether they have fully nailed it, I'm not so sure. I'm pretty convinced the obfuscation has to do with this though - they could care less about a lab leak, but if this is aresult of wildlife farming and borderline illegal activities, then that's a problem domestically and internationally.

**[2021-04-05T20:02:02] Edward C. Holmes:** Exactly! I couldn't agree more.

**[2021-04-05T20:02:02] Edward C. Holmes:** Hoping to get some journos to dig into this.

**[2021-04-05T20:02:02] Kristian G. Andersen:** Yeah, that's what we need - also, anonymous interviews with people who might have been at the market in November/December.

**[2021-04-05T20:02:02] Edward C. Holmes:** Totally. The whole WIV thing is a distraction from the real story.

**[2021-04-05T20:02:02] Edward C. Holmes:** More confidential stuff from this journo. All very curious:

**[2021-04-05T20:02:02] Edward C. Holmes:** "The other bigger market owned by the family that owns Huanan is interesting. I've been out there three times now. There are security guards at the office doors and all over the market. I was able to get in once and speak with a fewvendors who had moved there from Huanan, but they didn't want to say much since I'm American. Had you ever heard about the Huanan owner at all? He's basically known as a "respected thug" or "big brother" and has a lot of friends in high places in Wuhan. I've been investigating the 60 or so companies his family owns.The parents of the first known case went to a wet market, but so far I've not seen the name of this place mentioned. There were of course a bunch of…