Baric Transcribed Interview (Redacted) — page 149

'irst tried From: Jeremy Farrar < @wellcome.ac.uk> To: Edward Holmes < @sydney.edu.au> Cc: "Kristian G. Andersen" < @scripps.edu>, "Fauci, Anthony (NIH/NIAID) [E]" <afauci@niaid.nih.gov> Subject: Re: The authors who wrote the paper saying that SARS-CoV-2 is not human engineered first tried convincing Anthony Fauci of the opposite. Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2020 03:36:51 -0400 Importance: Normal Thanks Eddie. I will recheck emails and phones, I will try and do that today. I think it really starts on the 8/9th January and the calls you and I had with China and the original sequence. And others were also on those calls - Francis Collins, Mike Ferguson, Patrick Vallance. I would suggest we get the sequence of events absolutely right before replying. Best wishes Jeremy From: Edward Holmes < @sydney.edu.au> Date: Tuesday, 28 July 2020 at 08:30 To: Jeremy Farrar < @wellcome.ac.uk> Cc: "Kristian G. Andersen" < @scripps.edu>, "Fauci, Anthony (NIH/NIAID) [E]" <afauci@niaid.nih.gov> Subject: Re: The authors who wrote the paper saying that SARS-CoV-2 is not human engineered first tried convincing Anthony Fauci of the opposite. Hi Jeremy, Here is the exact time-line which I have now checked. 1. Jan 26. You call me (I was in Switzerland) to talk about some concerns coming out the US that the virus might be a lab escape. Patrick Vallance might have been on that call, I can't recall. You later forward me an email from Marc Lipsitch and others containing some comments from Richard Ebright. I take a quick look at the sequence and say that I saw no evidence for lab escape in SARS-CoV-2 because it's pattern of variability was the same as in RaTG13. 2. Jan 31. Kristian contacts me to say that he has spotted some strange things in the issue - specifically the furin cleavage site and restriction sites - that we was concerned about. Given our conversation earlier that week, I called you and informed you of Kristian's findings. We then decided to have a broader discussion with key parties on this ASAP. I think Kristian told Tony at this point but he can confirm. You and I then decided that Ron Fouchier, Christian Drosten and Marion Koopmans would be good to include. Christian also wanted Stephan Pollmnan involved. 3. Feb 1 (6 am on Feb 2 for me). We have the conference call and then start an email chain about how we should deal with this. Writing it up for a paper was on the agenda and discussed. I have all the emails on this.