---
type: Person
title: Edward C. Holmes
description: "Professor, University of Sydney"
tags:
  - person
  - sydney
organization: sydney
document_count: 11735
first_seen: "2020-04-30T16:09:46"
last_seen: "2023-06-28T20:44:44"
aliases:
  - Eddie Holmes
  - Edward C. Holmes
  - Edward Holmes
  - Holmes
sources:
  - { id: baric_ti, resource: /sources/baric-ti.md, title: Baric Transcribed Interview (Redacted), author: "process:senate-hsgac-release", last_modified: 2026-07-23 }
  - { 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
---

Professor, University of Sydney

# Activity

- **Documents:** 11735 (sent/authored 2986, received 8749)
- **Active:** 2020-04-30 to 2023-06-28
- **Organization:** [sydney](/organizations/sydney.md)
- **Appears as:** `Eddie Holmes`, `Edward C. Holmes`, `Edward Holmes`, `Holmes`

# Correspondents

| Person | Messages | First | Last |
|---|---:|---|---|
| [Kristian G. Andersen](/people/kristian-g-andersen.md) | 6542 | 2020-04-30 | 2023-06-28 |
| [Robert F. Garry](/people/robert-f-garry.md) | 6278 | 2020-04-30 | 2022-06-02 |
| [Andrew Rambaut](/people/andrew-rambaut.md) | 4883 | 2020-04-30 | 2022-06-02 |
| [Jeremy Farrar](/people/jeremy-farrar.md) | 2 | 2020-07-28 | 2020-07-28 |
| [Anthony S. Fauci](/people/anthony-s-fauci.md) | 1 | 2020-07-28 | 2020-07-28 |
| Uslackbot | 1 | 2021-05-14 | 2021-05-14 |

# Topics

* [Intelligence community assessments](/topics/intelligence-community.md) - 375 documents
* [Natural origin / zoonotic spillover](/topics/natural-origin.md) - 374 documents
* [Lab-leak / accidental release hypothesis](/topics/lab-leak-origin.md) - 274 documents
* [Furin cleavage site and molecular features](/topics/molecular-features.md) - 269 documents
* [Wuhan Institute of Virology collaboration](/topics/wiv-collaboration.md) - 253 documents
* [Vaccines](/topics/vaccines.md) - 236 documents
* [Proximal Origin paper](/topics/proximal-origin.md) - 113 documents
* [FOIA, records and transparency](/topics/foia-transparency.md) - 67 documents
* [China relations and data access](/topics/china-relations.md) - 60 documents
* [WHO and international investigation](/topics/who-international.md) - 54 documents

# Statement timeline

What this person is recorded saying, in date order, quoted verbatim with page citations.

* **2020-04-30** ([intelligence_community](/topics/intelligence-community.md), questions): "Coronavirus US live: intelligence report concludes Covid-19 was not 'manmade or genetically modified'…" [^slack_pm]
* **2020-05-01** ([intelligence_community](/topics/intelligence-community.md), asserts): "D614 was associated with a huge epidemic in China that was only controlled through a severe lockdown and don't see any difference in G614." [^slack_pm]
* **2020-05-01** ([media_messaging](/topics/media-messaging.md), asserts): "That must come from an email that I sent to my press officer who then forwarded to them." [^slack_pm]
* **2020-05-01** ([proximal_origin](/topics/proximal-origin.md), asserts): "Reads to me that are pissed off that they were not involved inour paper and so want to get in on the act." [^slack_pm]
* **2020-05-06** ([wiv_collaboration](/topics/wiv-collaboration.md), asserts): "The Telegraph claim that the WIV deleted files etc." [^slack_pm]
* **2020-05-10** ([natural_origin](/topics/natural-origin.md), asserts): "I think they missed a brilliant opportunity to use pangolins instead." [^slack_pm]
* **2020-05-11** ([gain_of_function](/topics/gain-of-function.md), denies): "On the debit side I was just sent another (long) piece of conspiracy theory BS: https://medium.com/@yurideigin/labmade-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748" [^slack_pm]
* **2020-05-18** ([natural_origin](/topics/natural-origin.md), acknowledges): "Completely agree about the pangolin RBD." [^slack_pm]
* **2020-05-24** ([china_relations](/topics/china-relations.md), asserts): "Although CGTN is a propaganda organ for the Chinese government, what she said rang true to me." [^slack_pm]
* **2020-05-24** ([intelligence_community](/topics/intelligence-community.md), reports): "There's a mountain of chatter about the pneumonia cases in Wuhan back in December before the disease was officially reported, but there is nothing about the lab." [^slack_pm]
* **2020-06-01** ([media_messaging](/topics/media-messaging.md), asserts): "Here are the talking points they sent to the journos." [^slack_pm]
* **2020-06-01** ([media_messaging](/topics/media-messaging.md), asserts): "The last 2 in the natural origins bit have got nothing to do with his paper at all. [shared file(s): Talking points Latinne et al." [^slack_pm]
* **2020-06-03** ([npi_masks](/topics/npi-masks.md), asserts): "NO country would have imposed a lockdown faster than China." [^slack_pm]
* **2020-06-03** ([npi_masks](/topics/npi-masks.md), asserts): "The mistake - which was understandable - is that they (China) assumed that was SARS and hence would be relatively easy to contain as they just had to quarantine the symptomatic cases." [^slack_pm]
* **2020-06-03** ([intelligence_community](/topics/intelligence-community.md), questions): ""Henceforth, those who would maintain that the Covid-19 pandemic arose from zoonotic transfer need to explain precisely why this more parsimonious account is wrong before asserting that their evidence is persuasive, most especially when, as we also show,…" [^slack_pm]
* **2020-06-03** ([vaccines](/topics/vaccines.md), asserts): ""To remedy the problem, the researchers are developing their own vaccine, produced by Immunor AS, a Norwegian pharmaceutical company led by Mr Sorensen"." [^slack_pm]
* **2020-06-06** ([molecular_features](/topics/molecular-features.md), questions): "Could it explain why the furin site is sometimes lost in cell culture?" [^slack_pm]
* **2020-06-08** ([natural_origin](/topics/natural-origin.md), questions): "Plenty of reasons why traffic could have increased: perhaps they had a special offer at the wet market?" [^slack_pm]
* **2020-06-11** ([molecular_features](/topics/molecular-features.md), asserts): "I was reading Mike's paper to suggest that D614G was under selection to increase the infectivity of SARS-CoV-2, because it was directly related to the furin cleavage insertion, such that it not perfectly adapted to humans on emergence." [^slack_pm]
* **2020-06-11** ([molecular_features](/topics/molecular-features.md), asserts): "I'm really struggling to understand why someone would "put" a furin site into a random bat virus they had not previously sequenced and published." [^slack_pm]
* **2020-06-11** ([molecular_features](/topics/molecular-features.md), asserts): "My take is that furin cleavage sites are *everywhere* in natural viruses e.g." [^slack_pm]
* **2020-06-11** ([molecular_features](/topics/molecular-features.md), asserts): "Also, the Zhou et al. paper never call it a furin cleavage site insertion and I think the alignment in that paper is the optimal one." [^slack_pm]
* **2020-06-11** ([molecular_features](/topics/molecular-features.md), asserts): "I also think that focusing on these genetic details - which are not conclusive - is in danger of missing the bigger picture: that bats (and like other wildlife) carry a huge diversity of coronaviruses some of which are closely related toSARS-CoV-2; that…" [^slack_pm]
* **2020-06-11** ([wiv_collaboration](/topics/wiv-collaboration.md), asserts): "But that work isn't exclusively done at the WIV because as you say yourself the Baric lab are doing it." [^slack_pm]
* **2020-06-11** ([natural_origin](/topics/natural-origin.md), asserts): "I think the bats not roosting in winter argument is nothing because I reckon it went through an intermediate host anyway." [^slack_pm]
* **2020-06-11** ([molecular_features](/topics/molecular-features.md), questions): "Are you saying they deliberately inserted the furin cleavage site?" [^slack_pm]
* **2020-06-11** ([natural_origin](/topics/natural-origin.md), asserts): "Strictly confidentially, I literally (2 mins ago) just got an email that says: "Recently, we isolated a pangolin-Cov that ishighly related with SARS-CoV-2 (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2313-x)." [^slack_pm]
* **2020-06-11** ([natural_origin](/topics/natural-origin.md), asserts): "We further found that the infected pangolins showed similar CT scans with COVID-19 patients (please see the attachment, a and b are virus-positive pangolins, while c is virus-negative)." [^slack_pm]
* **2020-06-11** ([natural_origin](/topics/natural-origin.md), asserts): "No one gives a shit and now we are seeing loads of pangolins with frothy lungs." [^slack_pm]
* **2020-06-11** ([molecular_features](/topics/molecular-features.md), asserts): "Notable that HKU1 does have a furin cleavage site but NL63 doesn't." [^slack_pm]

# Sources

[^baric_ti]: [baric_ti](/sources/baric-ti.md)
[^slack_pm]: [slack_pm](/sources/slack-pm.md)