Slack / Private Message Drop — page 178

[2020-09-17 08:07:54] [Robert Garry] I agree with Andrew that the main point is that our analysis would not have changed much at all without RaTG13. The pangolin CoVs (that Alina seems focused on) and other BtCoVs were sufficient for the Proximal Origins analysis. I do recall a PR that talked of a 99% CoV that unfortunately never came. [2020-09-17 08:13:32] [Andrew Rambaut] > Update from Vegard: ```Quick update: We were in the end able to obtain a decent assembly of RaTG13. The description of their approach is lacking to say the least, but the genome seems legit enough, and seems extremely unlikely to involve any sort of fraud. We'll post a little commenn on virological, as there might be others looking into the same question.``` [2020-09-17 08:14:59] [Kristian Andersen] Hah - I'm glad they're so thorough before bugging other scientists... I'm downloading the raw data now - lemme have a quick look [2020-09-17 09:05:52] [Kristian Andersen] Yeah, no concerns really @Andrew Rambaut [shared file(s): RaTG13.jpg] [2020-09-17 09:06:11] [Kristian Andersen] Very few unresolved bases (a handful) [2020-09-17 09:09:16] [Robert Garry] Good to see - Is there an analysis of the pango data? That seems to be a sticking point as well. [2020-09-17 09:13:15] [Robert Garry] "who knows where this will go next" --- not going away anytime soon - too important for the Presidential election - thanks for the rapid science response to Yan. Tucker/Yan now playing the censorship/victim card since Twitter suspended/flagged their accounts. Reminds me of the Grand Wizard - getting his NIH grant suspended was probably the best thing that ever happened to him. [2020-09-17 09:24:17] [Kristian Andersen] I haven't looked at the pangolin data - I'm not quite sure where the raw data is since I believe it was all uploaded to the Chinese data portals. Might be good to do an independent review though - just so we have it. @Eddie Holmes - do you know where the relevant raw data live? [2020-09-17 14:05:35] [Eddie Holmes] No, the pango data is elsewhere. Just look in Tommy's paper. It was RmYN02 that went to the Chinese databases. Let me make this very clear: the Guangdong pangolin viruses have been sequenced multiple times by multiple groups. They have also been Sanger sequenced. Plus there are Pangolins from Guangxi that have been sequenced. There is nothing wrong with the pangolin sequences. Inspector Clouseau's argument is that Guangdong pangolins are a single outbreak - and she's right about that - and then she seems to think that Guangdong pangolins may have gotten their viruses from humans which is just crazy. She also persistently claims that all the pangolin sequences were all derived from the one in the Viruses paper (pre-pandemic of course) which is untrue: there's a separate assembly in Tommy's paper.