Slack / Private Message Drop — page 245

SLACK_000459 [Eddie Holmes] We'll get to the bottom of it. That also provided me with Weijun Chen's email address so I'm just contacting him now. [Kristian Andersen] Okay, cool - I'm sure they're going to have a totally mundane explanation - like why RaTG13 was named that way cwink: [Eddie Holmes] On it. [Kristian Andersen] (and one pretty critical thing against the bonkers theories in the paper - wouldn't WIV have been mentioned in the BioSample had the virus come from there....? :man-shrugging:) [Eddie Holmes] Totally! [Eddie Holmes] Tommy says there are rumours that people knew earlier. My boy told me this: "As for the entry date, I have not read the long document yet, but that submission date is possible. They all talked about the sampling might occur much earlier (from different occasions). Therefore, I wouldn't be surprised if the sample is collected around that time (Dec 10th, not too bad). And I wouldn't be surprised if they have "changed" the sampling date". Nothing officially. At worse it means that the China CDC must have known earlier which will throw the shit badly on them, particularly George. May be not a bad thing. Does not impact origins in any way as I see it. [Eddie Holmes] Tommy has 6 SARS-CoV-2 sero-positive pangolins that are currently being metagenomically sequenced. The other news - which is obviously strictly confidential - is that someone in China (Tong?) has apparently obtained a MERS-like virus from a pangolin. [Kristian Andersen] Very interesting, makes sense. Based on this, the most likely explanation is that they probably had the very earliest patients sequenced around Dec 10th and then somebody slammed the brakes. The samples we have that are dated 12/26 are likely earlier then - and actually supported by the sequences themselves (one of these appear basal). The root is funky too - @Andrew Rambaut, I wonder if uncertainty in the dates around the very earliest samples could help explain that? Probably... (although, last I checked, the root is still funky if you remove all the dates). [Kristian Andersen] In any case - this is going to course another shit storm for the Chinese they're going to have a very hard time cleaning up - let's hope it happens after the election.... [Kristian Andersen] [thread - ID: 2020-10-30 21:41:22] The most basal sample being WH4 - this one: https:/Avww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/biosample/SAMEA6507893. The GPS coordinates on that points to a nursing home right next to the Line 2 main station (patient being a 39 old man).