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Alina Chan Profile picture
@Ayjchan
Sep 24, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X
For COVID-19, countries are getting so desperate that they're running human challenge trials or using vaccines that haven't passed phrase 3. What's the plan for the next pandemic? How will global pathogen sampling from nature generate vaccines that work against emerging threats?
Some countries are in such dire straits that they have made deals to allow Chinese Sinovac to perform phase 3 tests on their citizens. "The company is also planning clinical trials with thousands of volunteers in India, Brazil and Bangladesh." washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pac…
Other countries are considering giving up their territory or military alliances to ensure that they have priority access to vaccines. ft.com/content/853775…
Let's say that we have entered an era of pandemics. What measurably productive surveillance or vaccine strategies are being funded? What will developing countries have left to barter with for access to vaccines if a pandemic occurs every 5-10 years? abcnews.go.com/Health/covid-1…
If SARS2 emerged from recent spillover from animals into humans, we should be a lot more worried about re-emergence of a similar virus this winter. With SARS1, animal-to-human spillover occurred 2 winters in a row. Thankfully found the intermediate host within a week in Jan 2004.
If SARS2 emerged from pre-circulation in humans for months/years, those still-missing precursors or sibling SARS viruses could also be one step away from adapting into a highly transmissible form, seeding near future outbreaks.
In this sense, I’m not sure why people who are sure that this virus is 100% natural aren’t urging international investigations to find the source of recent spillover/intermediate hosts or pre-circulating human SARS2. Going to SE Asia to find bat CoV SARS2 ancestors doesn’t count.

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More from @Ayjchan

Alina Chan Profile picture
Mar 9
I am not 100% convinced Covid came from a lab. I still think there is a small chance the virus emerged in Wuhan without the help of research activities. However, this would mean:

1⃣ The Wuhan-US scientists' entire framework about the spillover risks of SARS-like viruses, building on research and data collected over more than a decade, was incorrect.

2⃣ A highly transmissible, super stealthy virus well adapted for causing uncontrollable outbreaks in multiple animal species left zero trace of its origin in the wildlife or fur farms of China/SE Asia after emerging in only Wuhan out of 1000s of other populous cities.

3⃣ Out of all possible viruses to cause a pandemic and all times for a pandemic to occur, it was an unprecedented SARS-like virus with a novel furin cleavage site, matching the description of a 2018 US-Wuhan research proposal, emerging in Wuhan where scientists worked with such viruses at low biosafety, less than 2 years after said proposal was drafted.

It's not impossible that leading experts were completely mistaken about the exceedingly low odds of such viruses emerging in Wuhan.

It's not impossible that, in 2019, nature churned out a virus matching the scientists' 2018 research plans and that virus emerged in only Wuhan of all places.

But you'd have to be very motivated to believe Covid-19 emerged naturally.
We are unlikely to reach 100% certainty unless a whistleblower appears or the Chinese authorities one day assess that it is in their interest to share the truth.

I am still hopeful that this will happen one day. I believe in human courage.
Before that day, there are several routes of investigation that remain to be explored by the US gov.

Conducting a rigorous, credible investigation of Covid origins can unearth more key evidence while also informing the implementation of new measures to prevent lab pandemics.
Read 5 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Mar 8
Top journals have the power to set global biosafety standards.

It's a problem that they do not see this as their moral responsibility. By publishing & celebrating risky research done at questionable biosafety, they incentivize the 'work fast break things' model of research.
I've given up on journals taking the initiative to be responsible members of the scientific community.

It is up to the U.S. government to tell them to behave responsibly or do business elsewhere.
I would love to be corrected if any top journal can show us that fostering a culture of accountability, scientific integrity, and 'do no harm' is one of their measurable goals as an organization & a strict criteria for decision-making regarding what research/groups to publish.
Read 6 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Mar 2
Dear @NSAGov I've just google searched several human transmissible viruses with the aim of understanding how many are not governed by the Federal Select Agents Program and can be used in gain-of-function research by privately funded groups.

I am not doing anything nefarious 🙏
@NSAGov The answer is there are a lot of human transmissible viruses that are not governed by the Federal Select Agents Program and can be used in gain-of-function research by privately funded groups.
@NSAGov Novel SARS-like and MERS-like viruses are not select agents. Meaning scientists in the US can bring these to their labs in major cities and enhance them without informing the authorities.

At any biosafety level they see fit.
Read 5 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Feb 21
Leading science organizations and journals appear to be utterly tone deaf.

Up till last month, the National Academies kept Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance as head of their forum on microbial threats. Nature journal continues to play the mouthpiece of the Proximal Origin authors & friends.

There appears to be zero introspection that they created/are part of a system that incentivizes risky research including the work in Wuhan that likely caused the pandemic.

Just this month, another top journal published 2 studies where MERS-like viruses were used in human cell infection studies at low biosafety (BSL-2) in Wuhan. The journal did not attach notices of concern to either paper.

Are we just waiting for another outbreak of ambiguous origin to occur? And will we endure more years of "it was the pangolins/bats/raccoon dogs/name your favorite intermediate host?"
@CellCellPress when you publish papers that handle animal pathogens with unclear (human) pandemic potential at low biosafety, you signal to the rest of the scientific community that this is totally fine and will be celebrated in the best scientific journals.
@CellCellPress At the very least, there should be a note of concern. For example, pointing out that the human pathogen MERS coronavirus has a ~30% fatality rate and, in the US, has to be handled at BSL-3. And that researchers should take extra precaution when handling its close relatives.
Read 5 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Feb 5
There is speculation that US funded collaborations with the Wuhan Institute of Virology to keep an eye on virus research there.

The problem is that, when a pandemic happened, the middleman did not produce intelligence but also actively suppressed the lab leak theory.
When the SARS-CoV-2 sequence was released in Jan 2020, EcoHealth could've said
1⃣They planned to put furin cleavage sites in SARS-like viruses
2⃣In 2013, the Wuhan lab discovered a new lineage of SARS-like viruses that the covid virus belongs to
3⃣Work was done at low biosafety
Instead we had to go through 5 years of the lab leak hypothesis being painted as a racist, anti-science conspiracy theory and a ton of misinformation from EcoHealth about the work being done in Wuhan.
Read 7 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Jan 9
No punches pulled piece on #OriginOfCovid by @ianbirrell

"The pandemic revealed the arrogant and contemptuous behaviour of leading scientific figures, aided by prominent academic journals, patsy journalists and weak politicians."
unherd.com/2025/01/chinas…
@ianbirrell I suggest one correction @ianbirrell please replace 'despite' with 'because of':

WHO "hired Sir Jeremy Farrar, despite the former Wellcome Trust boss’s exposure as a central player in... branding any suggestions Covid could have come from a laboratory as conspiracy theory."
@ianbirrell On Feb 19, 2020, the authors of Proximal Origin realized that Jeremy Farrar - who had convened them and led their efforts - had signed the Lancet letter by Daszak condemning all lab #OriginOfCovid as conspiracy theories. Image
Read 5 tweets

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