Slack / Private Message Drop — page 1058

Reading through our emails on 2/17/2020 is hilarious - so many last-minute things and I think I might just have come back from the desert... Eddie spelled my last name wrong!! [2022-01-13 14:46:26] [Eddie Holmes] Perhaps that was deliberate? [2022-01-13 14:50:21] [Kristian Andersen] Good point... We should have kept it - "not me, some other Kristian dude :man-shrugging:" [2022-01-14 07:46:06] [Andrew Rambaut] OK another request (Sunday Times). I am inclined to answer again unless anyone thinks I shouldn't. Here is the request and my proposed reply: > Dear Andrew, > > I'm a reporter with The Sunday Times of London Newspaper. I'm just getting in touch to ask a couple of questions about the teleconference you were a part of in Feb 2020 which has been the subject of speculation this week following the de-redaction of some emails. I suspect you know which one I am referring to - on Feb 1, 2020, organised by Jeremy Farrar. > > Following this teleconference, you sent an email to your counterparts in which you say: _"If the evolutionary origins of the epidemic were to be discussed, I think the only people with sufficient information or access to samples to address it would be the teams working in Wuhan."_ > > - I was wondering how it was that you came to author the draft of a paper on that subject which was shared by Jeremy Farrar two days later on Feb 4 and published online in draft form on Feb 16/17. What was it that changed your mind? > > Did someone from a team working in Wuhan get in touch? Or perhaps you were convinced by your co-authors? > > - More generally, are you able to address growing concerns that during that teleconference there was an agreement made to steer the press and public away from considering the virus as originating in a lab, for political reasons? I ask this because it seems that line was adopted very early on, particularly by your co-author Kristian Andersen (Feb 4), and perhaps before there was sufficient evidence for thinking this couldn't have been the case. > > - Were you aware, while you were on that call, that Anthony Fauci had historically funded research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology? > > - Contrary to much rhetoric, I see that the idea that the virus escaped from a lab _is_ considered in your proximal origins paper ("_We must therefore consider the possibility of a *deliberate or inadvertent* release of SARS-CoV-2"_). Why was this deemed less politically inflammatory than the idea that the virus could have been manipulated in a lab? > > Any response you could offer today or tomorrow, would be much appreciated as my deadline is midday tomorrow. > > Best, > Madeleine > -- > Madeleine Spence > Sunday Times News Review > Dear Madeleine, > > I was asked my opinion as one of a group of experts in various relevant fields. We provided some initial assessments of the plausibility of the various hypotheses and then undertook a more detailed analysis and review of data (including new data from the Pangolins). All of our conclusions were written in our published and peer-reviewed papers (i.e., in Nature Medicine and then updated in Cell late last year). All of the emails show the establishment of