Slack / Private Message Drop — page 1034

If this all came down to "what's the likelihood of a lab leak", then sure, all of this would be very concerning. However, we have to contend with all the "unlikelihood" that would have to happen _upstream_ and _downstream_ of an actual lab leak for that to explain how SC2 emerged in the human population, plus, of course, actual evidence. People love to focus on the "lab leak happens" part and then forget about everything else. If you live in that vacuum, sure, it can be hard to convince yourself that's not how this happened. Problem is, we don't live in a vacuum. [2021-11-26 14:03:28] [Andrew Rambaut] Perhaps a commentary timed for shortly after the Zoonati paper discussing how, given the origins are now reasonably pinned down, important it is to separate the issues and make some sensible positions on lab risk (and as we dicussed this morning the much greater risk from field work) [2021-11-26 14:03:48] [Kristian Andersen] Very good idea! [2021-11-26 14:05:00] [Kristian Andersen] Make it clear that: (1) separate debate on biosafety in the light of how widespread SARSr viruses are, and (2) that continued investigations to understand their emergence is required, including figuring out exactly how SC2 popped up (and SC1 for that matter). [2021-11-26 14:05:53] [Eddie Holmes] Yup, I'm all for that. [2021-11-26 14:06:38] [Kristian Andersen] Let's do it - I actually think this is a really good idea. [2021-11-26 14:07:41] [Andrew Rambaut] Yes. And there are often safe ways of getting much of the data. [2021-11-26 14:13:36] [Kristian Andersen] Yup - and in fact, tying it all back to what we said in our 2018 Nature commentary... Would be extra powerful since so many idiots have brought up that commentary as a proof that we changed our minds - which we didn't. If anything, I think we all would double down on what we said in that commentary. [2021-11-26 15:13:59] [Andrew Rambaut] :+1: [2021-11-27 08:55:49] [Robert Garry] !channel Just posting this here - I need to let it cool of for a while and check for errors - sure that there are some. This is the Christmas card updated - Omicron version. I removed Beta and Gamma. This is just Alpha, Delta and Omega. Question is should *1.* I update the prior zoo Virological thread [Garry] or *2.* post as another thread and include you gentleman [Andersen, Rambaut, Holmes and Garry] with a short note about the fact that 7 of 7 of the previously noted postions that have changed after SC2 was put into rodents a show up in one form or another in Omicron or *3.* holdoff for now. [shared file(s): zoo plus Omicron 11-26-21.pdf] [2021-11-27 08:57:20] [Kristian Andersen] This is great Bob - I say you post it as an update to your already existing post so it's all in one neat place.