Thread by @trvrb

Excellent reporting by @AP outlining timeframe of release of #SARSCoV2 genetic data in early Jan as the #COVID19 outbreak unfolded in Wuhan. 1/6
apnews.com/3c061794970661…

I want to focus on one detail here. Professor Yong-Zhen Zhang at Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center and Fudan University first posted the genome sequence to Genbank on Jan 5 "where it sat awaiting review". 2/6

To get ahead of this delay, the sequence was posted publicly to virological.org on Jan 10. 3/6

https://twitter.com/edwardcholmes/status/1215802670176276482

This public posting resulted in immediate release of 5 additional genome sequences generated by China CDC, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Wuhan Institute of Virology. 4/6

In addition to serving as the basis for developing PCR primers for diagnostics, genomic data provided an early warning of the extent of sustained human-to-human transmission. 5/6

https://twitter.com/nextstrain/status/1220498742685523968

Prof Zhang and colleagues did the heroic thing and immediately posted their genome sequence to a public repository on Jan 5. The world cannot thank them enough. It's a small tragedy that it sat in review at Genbank until Jan 12 and had to be posted separately to Virological. 6/6