Slack / Private Message Drop — page 289

are saying and doing stupid things to get a bit of attention. Reminds me of @Covidfaker who sought out and got 4 days of "teevee glory" as a fake COVID poster child. [2020-12-02 05:26:49] [Robert Garry] If they don't withdraw, then the editors should retract. [2020-12-02 05:39:40] [Robert Garry] Maybe by some stretch of the imagination (calling all trolls) this is partly our "fault." In PO1 we told people to do retrospective serology studies along with some PCR. We just didn't tell them to thread carefully... [2020-12-02 05:57:13] [Andrew Rambaut] Does no one have blood samples from previous winters? [2020-12-02 08:34:20] [Robert Garry] Speaking of Trevor: https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1333882354046296064 [2020-12-02 08:35:34] [Robert Garry] He shouldn't be feeding the trolls. However, this caught my eye: [shared file(s): image.png] [2020-12-02 08:49:27] [Kristian Andersen] Haha, that's cute. Why he's surprised that we haven't found the intermediate host, I'm not sure - same for Relman (this whole BS sentence "Beyond these facts, the "origin story" is missing many key details, including a plausible and suitably detailed recent evolutionary history of the virus, the identity and provenance of its most recent ancestors, and surprisingly, the place, time, and mechanism of transmission of the first human infection."). I agree with Trevor that considering any type of lab scenario a conspiracy theory is incorrect - however, it's clear that most lab theories are indeed conspiracy theories (I think people have a hard time understanding the difference here...). What's funny here is that Trevor was gung ho that this definitely was a natural virus at the time where I was strongly saying "wait a minute, we need to take a close look at this". After reading The Thesis, I think he's pretty convinced it came from the lab. [2020-12-02 08:57:00] [Andrew Rambaut] I totally agree. Conspiracy theories are about conspiracies. [2020-12-02 13:20:51] [Eddie Holmes] It's like deja vu all over again. [2020-12-02 14:54:44] [Kristian Andersen] I'm glad Eric's on it. Those two are like peas in a pod. https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1333945136267583494?s=20 [2020-12-02 15:00:53] [Eddie Holmes] Made in heaven. [2020-12-02 16:14:56]