---
type: Conversation
title: Private channel session 1392
description: "slack conversation, 16 messages, 2021-05-17."
tags:
  - conversation
  - slack
medium: slack
message_count: 16
started_at: "2021-05-17T16:11:53"
ended_at: "2021-05-17T19:20:35"
duration_seconds: 11322
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 16 messages spanning 3h 8m.

# Metadata

- **Started:** 2021-05-17T16:11:53
- **Ended:** 2021-05-17T19:20:35
- **Duration:** 3h 8m
- **Participants:** 3
- **Source:** [slack_pm](/sources/slack-pm.md)
- **Pages:** 827-829

# 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

**[2021-05-17T16:11:53] Robert F. Garry:** The Politifact article has been updated with a few paragraphs from Baric. If he was a politician we'd call it flippingand flopping and trying to play both sides.https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/may/17/debating-origins-covid-19-virus-what-we-know-what-/

**[2021-05-17T16:23:51] Edward C. Holmes:** Extraordinary.

**[2021-05-17T16:29:17] Robert F. Garry:** Yeah - he may be having a second thought or two about signing on to that really really dumb letter.

**[2021-05-17T16:45:32] Edward C. Holmes:** A letter which proposes his collaborators have lied.

**[2021-05-17T16:49:52] Kristian G. Andersen:** From the PolitiFact article: "Furthermore, the first cases of the coronavirus occurred in September when cold temperatures drive horseshoe bats into hibernation" Eh, no, actually, November the likely month (December confirmed). And let's not forget - when were the first casesof SARS discovered? That's right, November.

**[2021-05-17T16:52:56] Edward C. Holmes:** Plus why did it come directly from bats?

**[2021-05-17T17:11:25] Kristian G. Andersen:** This quote from Joel is :fire: "But not having answers to difficult scientific questions shouldn't force us to default to conspiracy theories," he said."It took scientists decades of research to find the chimpanzee host populations for the HIV/AIDS pandemic."

**[2021-05-17T17:12:11] Kristian G. Andersen:** That's exactly right. We should probably involve him in this little project too - they have been looking pretty carefullyat the early events and I know he's been doing some studies to show that there are no signs of culture adaptation.

**[2021-05-17T17:27:59] Edward C. Holmes:** This from Alice. She's a bat ecologist who actually lives and works in Yunnan: "In Mid-Northern Yunnan Rhinolophids hibernate, down in the tropics we have not found hibernacula, but the numbers we capture go right down so they are either using different areas or inaccessible hibernacula-there is always some activity though, so atleast some individuals in South Yunnan never hibernate, some may-but only for a very short period."

**[2021-05-17T17:31:30] Kristian G. Andersen:** Do they migrate at all or move around for any of these events? I'm wondering if there's some sort of connection between the winter months and the virus getting into contact with intermediate hosts. HKU-1 also happened in the winter - probably January.

**[2021-05-17T17:36:51] Edward C. Holmes:** I'll check.

**[2021-05-17T18:17:00] Edward C. Holmes:** More from Alice. I asked here in there might be more opportunities for cross-species transmission during Nov-Jan.

**[2021-05-17T18:17:05] Edward C. Holmes:** "It's complicated. Many bats have maternity roosts, so there is sexual segregation for certain parts of the year during breeding, in China that period will vary, but we see most females starting to give birth in late April-May. They will then nurse their baby (typically one) for a number of months, and the Rhinos will leave young in a "creche" duringforaging, whereas some other species will often feed whilst carrying their young. Those activities are finished by November, but at least some species have the mating period then (most species have delayed implantation, or delayed fertilisation etc capabilities). The Rhino's are very polygamous with veryscewed success ratios, so a minority of…

**[2021-05-17T19:00:29] Robert F. Garry:** Super-interesting Eddie - learning a lot!

**[2021-05-17T19:06:00] Robert F. Garry:** Reminds me I need to find some African Batpeople. And snake hunters too - I'm pretty sure the rock pythons have reptarenaviruses. Kristian once volunteered to help IIRC (some rock pythons get to be 10 meters).

**[2021-05-17T19:20:35] Edward C. Holmes:** Amazing what you learn when you actually ask an expert. Certainly plenty of opportunities for transmission during the colder months.