Slack / Private Message Drop — page 286

The Guardian did a decent job - hopefully NYTimes does it right as well. Speaking from my narrow perspective the worst part is the amateur serology. Cross-reactivity information is actually quite important, but those studies have to be done very carefully and interpreted even more carefully. No way though the serology tells you that SC2 was in Italy before China. [2020-11-30 16:37:56] [Eddie Holmes] https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/30/asia/wuhan-china-covid-intl/index.html [2020-11-30 16:45:11] [Eddie Holmes] "Similarly, no mention is made by officials of a so-called laboratory leak, or that the virus was man-made, as some critics, including top US officials, have claimed without evidence." [2020-11-30 17:52:29] [Robert Garry] One thing is certain - this keeps the whole CCP cover-up on the front burner. [2020-11-30 18:24:50] [Kristian Andersen] Still reading through it, but I find sentences like this hilarious: "[...] reveal what appears to be an inflexible health care system constrained by top-down bureaucracy and rigid procedures that were ill-equipped to deal with the emerging crisis. At several critical moments in the early phase of the pandemic, the documents show evidence of clear missteps and point to a pattern of institutional failings." So, are we talking about China in January 2020? Or are we talking the United States January, 2020 through December, 2020? I'm confused... [2020-11-30 18:34:48] [Eddie Holmes] Ha, yes, applies equally. Perhaps China will use that line? [2020-11-30 18:43:44] [Kristian Andersen] They might want to tweak it a little to make it even stronger. [2020-11-30 18:50:14] [Eddie Holmes] They are really having a go at Australia at the moment. Soft target and really stupid. They are losing the plot a bit. [2020-11-30 18:51:50] [Kristian Andersen] Well, Aussies are easy targets because they can take the heat - "Fuck it you nitwit - heading to the beach and then it's out for a pint with me mates" [2020-11-30 18:53:28] [Eddie Holmes] We fucking can! It's been in the 40s here. And here's a bit of fun about that rubella paper published in Nature the other week...we just sequenced some more fish including an electric ray. Sorry the tree is shit but we just did it. And the rooting in that paper is wrong. [shared file(s): rubella.trimmed.fasta.tree.png] [2020-11-30 19:02:37] [Kristian Andersen] Wait, are you telling me that that paper I rejected for Nature but that Nature decided to go ahead with anyway might have rooted their tree incorrectly? I did tell them to be careful with their conclusions... [2020-11-30 19:04:55]