Slack / Private Message Drop — page 825

[2021-05-17 10:25:21] [Robert Garry] Lipkin is in the DM longread as well "I spoke about Nick's article last week with Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, the renowned Columbia University virus hunter who was one of the five co-authors on the seminal "proximal origin" paper. He favored a natural origin theory, he said, in part because he had assumed that all the Wuhan Institute's 2019 work with SARS-like viruses had been done in its top-level BSL-4 lab, which was cleared to operate in 2017. (State Department cables from 2018 raised questions about how well-run the lab was.) But later he learned of studies with Dr. Shi's name on them showing that work he considers dangerous had been done in level BSL-2 labs, which he considers highly porous to leaks, not just in 2016, but in 2020. "That's screwed up," he said. "It shouldn't have happened. People should not be looking at bat viruses in BSL-2 labs. My view has changed." That is still not, as he pointed out, direct evidence of a lab leak. There _is no proof_ of a leak. But the Occam's Razor argument -- what's the likeliest explanation, animal or lab? -- keeps shifting in the direction of the latter." [2021-05-17 10:28:07] [Kristian Andersen] "But later he learned of studies with Dr. Shi's name on them showing that work he considers dangerous had been done in level BSL-2 labs, which he considers highly porous to leaks, not just in 2016, but in 2020." Is the daft? All of that has been known for years and we discussed it at length...' [2021-05-17 10:30:28] [Kristian Andersen] It's extremely damaging coming from Butt Lesion though - what an idiot. And the "Occam's Razor" argument is just uninformed. [2021-05-17 11:53:50] [Robert Garry] The length of that Medium Post though - seems like the start of yet another book for sure. [2021-05-17 12:34:10] [Robert Garry] [thread - ID: 2021-05-17 08:02:43] @Andrew Rambaut Thanks - WHO folks asked again about "peer-review" of the post so I may cut this to 1000 words and submit as Tech Report in response to Bloomshit. Just getting reaction from Bloom and Relman would be worth the effort. [2021-05-17 12:52:37] [Robert Garry] https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/may/17/debating-origins-covid-19-virus-what-we-know-what-/ [2021-05-17 12:53:59] [Robert Garry] Lots of names in this article. [2021-05-17 12:54:23] [Kristian Andersen] Haven't read it yet, but from the summary: "... researchers are paying more attention to the possibility that the virus somehow leaked from the lab, though there's still nothing conclusive." Things like that pisses me off - "nothing conclusive" really has to be "no evidence". [2021-05-17 13:19:43] [Robert Garry]