Slack / Private Message Drop — page 109

[Andrew Rambaut] Yeah. Just some phylogenies, recombination and date estimates of SARS related coronaviruses. Nothing you haven't heard already. [2020-07-27 14:39:05] [Kristian Andersen] Cool! One interesting thing I got from Trevor though - if he tries to date SARS2 via the related viruses (of which we now have a few), he gets a relatively nice signal for 2014/2015. Doesn't mean anything in isolation, but I still keep contemplating that 'pre' circulation scenario for emergence. They need to go hunt some more viruses in those Yunnan caves! [2020-07-27 14:40:17] [Andrew Rambaut] It is meaningless to date SARS2 with related viruses - makes no sense. [2020-07-27 14:41:08] [Kristian Andersen] I thought so too, but honing in on specific parts of the genomes that were homologous it seemed like it could be done - no idea about the details though. [2020-07-27 14:43:39] [Andrew Rambaut] It also makes no sense that the SARS2 diversity circulating now was part of the pre-circulating scenario. The Wuhan haplotype may have been around for a month or two prior to Dec 2019 but not much longer given the transmissibility of the virus. This virus doesn't lurk unobserved. [2020-07-27 14:45:03] [Andrew Rambaut] Has Trevor found his next thing to go off on Twitter about? [2020-07-27 14:46:43] [Kristian Andersen] "This virus doesn't lurk unobserved" - as is, definitely true - but I _do_ wonder if a pre-furin site virus could. But I agree with you - I'm not sure such an analysis makes sense given our limited sampling. Assuming SARS2 came out of Yunnan diversity (which seems likely), it would be cool to go do some in-depth sampling from there. And yes, maybe we'll get the big reveal on Twitter :wink: [2020-07-27 14:48:08] [Andrew Rambaut] But if the acquisition of the furin site is the point at which it becomes epidemic then once again we are back to the common ancestor of the current diversity being in late 2019. We don't have any other nodes to date. [2020-07-27 14:50:24] [Kristian Andersen] .... ehm, yes. That is, of course, true... Unless it's been in a freezer since that outbreak in the Mojiang mine... :parrot: [2020-07-27 14:55:21] [Kristian Andersen] And @Robert Garry - I have come around on challenge testing... What I really want to see is early challenge trials in very small (~10-20) groups of people to establish efficacy. If it doesn't work in those, no need to move forward... I'm SUPER uncomfortable with 30,000 people now getting the Moderna vaccine - can you imagine how detrimental this is going to be for (COVID and otherwise) vaccine research if this vaccine actually isn't safe? Or may even lead to ADE?