Edward C. Holmes

Coronavirus US live: intelligence report concludes Covid-19 was not 'manmade or genetically modified' https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/apr/30/coronavirus-us-live-federal-guidelines-social-distancing-expire-trump-cuomo-latest-news-updates?CMP=share_btn_tw&page=with:block-5eab41b68f08f76ffc19f175#block-5eab41b68f08f76ffc19f175

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.2 · original PDF · in context

The Telegraph claim that the WIV deleted files etc.

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I think they missed a brilliant opportunity to use pangolins instead.

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Completely agree about the pangolin RBD.

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Here are the talking points they sent to the journos.

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Could it explain why the furin site is sometimes lost in cell culture?

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.57 · original PDF · in context

Also, the Zhou et al. paper never call it a furin cleavage site insertion and I think the alignment in that paper is the optimal one.

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I think the bats not roosting in winter argument is nothing because I reckon it went through an intermediate host anyway.

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Are you saying they deliberately inserted the furin cleavage site?

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.73 · original PDF · in context

I hear there may be more pangolin viruses.

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A pangolin is the obvious animal you'd have in the lab.

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Their RDBs are all highly similar (almost identical), and so I think this somehow proves that this RBD sequence is real.

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.88 · original PDF · in context

Also, there is not one Guangdong pangolin CoV.

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.100 · original PDF · in context

But the hotel quarantine thing is huge in Australia.

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.136 · original PDF · in context

I think the one from the Wuhan Institute of Virology has a leak.

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.139 · original PDF · in context

In other news I think he's confused Bart for Homer: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/31/did-pangolins-start-the-coronavirus-pandemic

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She seems to seriously think that humans gave a SARS-CoV-2-like virus to pangolins....which obviously raises more questions than it resolves.

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.145 · original PDF · in context

Just had my first freedom of information journo request....

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.145 · original PDF · in context

To me, if the furin cleavage site is active in cell culture then it is also likely to be active in evolution.

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.149 · original PDF · in context

Perhaps, but the official numbers from China are clearly large underestimates.

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.152 · original PDF · in context

The accusations at the end that RmYN02 and the pangolin sequences are fraudulent seems like defamation to me (and I'm on these papers).

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There is nothing wrong with the pangolin sequences.

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.178 · original PDF · in context

Inspector Clouseau's argument is that Guangdong pangolins are a single outbreak - and she's right about that - and then she seems to think that Guangdong pangolins may have gotten their viruses from humans which is just crazy.

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I thought it was 'Taming of the Pangolin'.

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.181 · original PDF · in context

This chat was all over social media in China.

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And yet there is no chat about nothing from WIV.

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.201 · original PDF · in context

Any suggestion and comment on this is appreciated.Sincerely yoursHassan

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With that in mind, I wantedto reach out to see if you had any suggestions of recent graduates, post-docs, or other colleagues who has strong background in genomics, bioinformatics and virus evolution analysis that might be interested these opportunities.We greatly appreciate your help.

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Or was God in on what was happening at the WIV?

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.223 · original PDF · in context

I don't see anything nefarious in here at all (how the fuck can you fake the CT scanof a pangolin lung - Tippex?).

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.230 · original PDF · in context

WIV do their sequencing in-house I think.

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Nor would WIV have anything to do with BGI.

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The idea that 2-3 weeks before all this it was known at a commercial sequencing company based in a different city seems untenable to me.

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.242 · original PDF · in context

The other news - which is obviously strictly confidential - is that someone in China (Tong?) has apparently obtained a MERS-like virus from a pangolin.

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But that's just Let's see if I can anything 'official'.

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.246 · original PDF · in context

It was actually ashonky vaccination campaign.

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Suggests is a dodgy vaccine trial NOT an escape.

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.264 · original PDF · in context

Perhaps we should ask Nature Medicine if they up for Proximal Origins II?

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I was thinking: 'Proximal Origins II: Are We the Baddies?'

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The first (EPI_ISL_678386) was collected from hotel quarantine on 30/11/2020, while the second (EPI_ISL_717711) was collected from hotel quarantine on 9/12/2020.

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@Andrew Rambaut They're in quarantine for 2 weeks so the is just about plausible although it seems a bit long tome.

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.326 · original PDF · in context

Vince is loosing the plot: http://www.microbe.tv/twiv/

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Yes, I saw this in the Daily Mail: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9106951/Lab-leak-credible-source-coronavirus-outbreak-says-government-official.html I wonder who this whistle blower is?

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.355 · original PDF · in context

The idea that the WIV were working on pangolins seems totally bizarre.

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That HK press release is very informative.

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The Yunnan pangolin sequence was of low quality.

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Also he has an ego the size of a planet and he is madly angry with Zhang because he probably think his Noble prize has gone.

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Not intermediate hosts but the ecology is really interesting.

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They are probably the best of commercial channels and are famous for covering the cricket.

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Petrovsky is an idiot - mainly wants to hype his vaccine

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Petrovsky should stick to failing to make vaccines.

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In this case Iwould say no because I think this lineage has been around since 2020-03-23 according to Pangolin.

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The embargo is a standard - hold until publication clause.

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The head Chinese guy just said that your photos of the Huanan market might have been synthesised!".

Slack / Private Message Drop, p.497 · original PDF · in context

The reporting on the WHO mission has been largely shit.

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Not sure if that means anything;(iv) there were seemingly 10 animal vendors at the Huanan market and apparently the Chinese have not tested animals from the base of the chain that leads to these vendors...the base is animals from southern China (Yunnan, Guangdong etc.).

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I think the WIV is totally off the agenda for the WHO.

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This is the email that triggered my work on the WIV.

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The UK hotel quarantine scheme is not long enough for a start.

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And why would they possibly be culturing a random bat virus which was not associated with the miners outbreak (because they published a partial sequence of RaT13 years ago)?

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Had a chat to Linfa and it seems he has more positive pangolins.

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Kristian is referring to this: https://undark.org/2021/03/17/lab-leak-science-lost-in-politics/

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While some scientists and politicians say COVID-19 likely emerged naturally, Mr Asher said in his assessment itprobably came from a laboratory.

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https://twitter.com/klustout/status/1219078782549725184?s=20 "Don't know if I ever sent you this, but it's a link to a CNN video of the Huanan market (allegedly) taken in Dec 2019(allegedly).

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That was going to the care under any circumstances But there's nothing in this doc that makes a lab leak more likely

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I'll see where we are with the pangolins.

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Pangolins are clearly very receptive to CoVs.

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Why would Chinese authorities not check more farms but prepared to shut down so many of them [on the raising for meat consumption side]?

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The whole WIV thing is a distraction from the real story.

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They should have said Forensic Bioinformatics Investigation (FBI).

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These people are desperate truth-twisters: https://usrtk.org/biohazards/foi-documents-on-origins-of-sars-cov-2-risks-of-gain-of-function-research-and-biosafety-labs/

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No doubt in my mind that pangolins are major reservoirs.

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I'll see if any more pangolin viruses are on the go.

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Intermediate host has a complex bat-pangolin recombinant?

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I think that's what I was I trying to say - that the intermediate host is a different species....but has a virus with acomplex recombinant history, like SIVcpz.

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So, is the idea that they knew there was a lab leak in September and took down their databases then, but didn't actually tell anyone or do anything for 3 months?

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He should into the military association atNIH.

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I'm not sure if I'm comforted by the 15,000 bat samples in the freezer: "I keep making the point that the US taxpayer paid for us to collect 15,000+ bat samples that are now in freezers in Wuhan, and because ofthis fake cold-war we can't officially control the work on them.

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I think the WHO proposal is simply about politics, particularly trying to avoid the association with particular places (which the press will totally ignore).

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The vaccine roll-out is going really slowly....glacial.

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Same RBD found in pangolins so it is in nature.

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Can't have anyone with any link to WIV Has to be done by slack/googledoc otherwise there will be GIPAs galore

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He's a bit all over the place, but what I get from this is whatever as going on within the Wuhan Institute of Virology, what goes outside its highlyregulated doors was probably 100X more risky when it comes to disease emergence.

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What are the odds that all of the viruses in the WIV that they have worked on over the years it's the one that's thereno record of that is subject to a catastrophic lab leak?

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Gilles as done some maths to show that the WIV are lying.

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None of this was about a possible lab leak.

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Had a very bad reaction to my first AZ vaccine yesterday.

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The TWiVO thing is very interesting though.

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Sharri is so dumb -just wait til she finds out that I told the Chief Medical Officer and the intelligence services here that we thought itmight be a lab leak...hang on, though, how can that be a cover-up?

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This is good: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-06-03/lab-leak-covid-origin

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vy was upset because she thought I said Rand Paul

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Can't believe the WIV had pangolins and there is serological evidence for SARS related viruses in these animals going back some years.

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I assume these have a furin cleavage site.

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Whether these MERS-like viruses are of any importance is unclear, but it does show that pangolins are more important in the ecology of these viruses than wethought.

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As I don't think Fauci will be able to release party emails we'll probably get another FOIA request now.

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Got another FOIA from ae: will be declined again and probably end up in court again.

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I also suspect a release would not help SAGO

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I think he's just trying to protect himself now and distance himself from WIV and Daszak

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I thought they were awarded automatically.

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Yes, but the subpoena has no jurisdiction over me either.

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Plus, any email to George is on FOIA-watch.

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Could you help me understand why it seems that a paper dismissing the possibility of a lab accident was draftedbefore you and your collaborators had reached a firm conclusion?

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