Slack / Private Message Drop — page 773

Would really cause some confusion... [2021-05-11 02:45:17] [Eddie Holmes] Was chatting to some of WHO people about the RelBloom thing today...their reaction is :man-facepalming: [2021-05-11 02:45:54] [Eddie Holmes] I also had a very interesting chat with my Deep Throat in China. Got the following: [2021-05-11 02:46:23] [Eddie Holmes] "No evidence so far indicate that the WIV has the virus in storage." [2021-05-11 02:46:44] [Eddie Holmes] "I think George is leading the effort and BGI is help with all the sequencing works. That's the national team, although other team are also working on similar project, but with smaller scale. There has been huge effort on environments (wet market in Wuhan) and wild-life animals (all over China, including bats and pangolines). I myself is involved in these some of the work (one with pangoline and the other with the Gamey taste animals), but nothing relavent is found at this stage. And I haven't heard anything interesting from others either. George previously wanted me to involve in the data analyses, and promised to send the hard disk, but they never arrived. So I guess he is having second thoughts." [2021-05-11 02:47:10] [Eddie Holmes] Plus this awesome figure: [shared file(s): Fig 1 Hv20210510v2.pdf] [2021-05-11 02:48:16] [Eddie Holmes] So, nothing found yet but great they are looking so hard. Can't see any evidence for mink or raccoon dog testing though. [2021-05-11 02:53:01] [Robert Garry] That's super interesting @Eddie Holmes Yes indeed I'm glad they are looking so hard! [2021-05-11 02:53:07] [Robert Garry] I was typing this: JC is one of a handful of science journo that could get this right. He's probably non to happy _Science_ is publishing this crap. I find it interesting they give a Editorial credit to Jennifer Sills. On further reflection of RelBloomshit the the two things that piss me off the most are: 1. the assertion that there is "no clear evidence" for natural origin in the WHO report and 2. "Not racists, however, the Chinese scientists, authorities, and public health officials are lying." 1 is an argument from authority meant to demean a scientific conclusion they don't like and confuse ppl, while 2 is a self-serving plea to ignore the fact that they are proposing a massive cover-up and conspiracy. [2021-05-11 02:55:17] [Eddie Holmes] My strategy now is try and do as much with China as I can get an insight into what the fuck is going on. Totally agree with your take Bob. #2 is really, really sleazy. [2021-05-11 02:56:23] [Eddie Holmes] That they are looking so bloody hard suggests to me that they clearly think it is natural. Why bother if it's engineered?