Slack / Private Message Drop — page 251

[2020-11-05 14:05:55] [Andrew Rambaut] Y453F seems to have arisen 5 or 6 times in humans. But it arose 4 times independently in Marion's mink genomes and now in Denmark. Seems possible it is an adaptation to mink's ACE2 but also can occur in humans but not really go anywhere. [2020-11-05 14:11:18] [Andrew Rambaut] The variant that the Danes are going on their crazed furry creature killing spree about has 4 spike mutations - 69del, Y453F, I692V, M1229I [2020-11-05 14:13:03] [Kristian Andersen] Thanks Andrew - yeah, I noticed Y453F was found in NL as well. Is it public knowledge that these are the four mutations, or is that WHO confidential for now? I have a TON of DK reporters asking about this, but haven't found anything official. [2020-11-05 14:14:12] [Kristian Andersen] For this mink stuff - I could totally see selection in mink driving things like immune escape. Presumably selection for transmission (including longer infectious period) is high given that they're caged up. [2020-11-05 14:15:40] [Andrew Rambaut] Confidential but everyone is going bonkers at Denmark for not giving out any details. [2020-11-05 14:16:39] [Kristian Andersen] So ridiculous - they have been sitting on a ton of mink+human sequencing data for months and nothing released. I'll call them out to a couple of journalists [2020-11-05 14:19:09] [Andrew Rambaut] They just dumped a whole lot of human data on GISAID but it is all from Apr/May not sure why they did that [2020-11-05 15:58:02] [Andrew Rambaut] OK - looks like they were midway through the upload. Now they have about 800 up going up until October. [2020-11-05 16:24:20] [Robert Garry] [thread - ID: 2020-11-04 18:03:57] @Eddie Holmes I don't know David Relman, but I have heard he was a serious Microbiologist. This paper is indeed CRAP, When we go on our expedition to Malaysia hopefully there will be an opportunity to discuss David's father and "step-mother" (both former EiCs of NEJM). [2020-11-05 16:34:58] [Eddie Holmes] I can't focus on COVID-19 after listening to Trump. Ashamed to be a member of the same species. [2020-11-05 16:36:34] [Robert Garry] Agreed Eddie Trump is a disgrace. [2020-11-05 16:38:44] [Eddie Holmes]