Thread by @Ayjchan

The first week of 2021 has been terrible.

On origins, we heard from Mail on Sunday that Matt Pottinger (who resigned after the insurrection) said latest intelligence points to WIV as "most credible source" of SARS2/covid.

No idea when we will hear more.

https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1345507949813374976

Then, @nicholsonbaker8 published his lab leak hypothesis, which I enjoyed reading even if I don't agree with some speculations - got drawn into defending the piece, which led to me being compared to people who incite violence and destruction of democracy. nymag.com/intelligencer/…

The reason why I don't consider a lab leak and even a leak of a bioengineered virus a conspiracy is because there's so much we don't know yet.

But I know that rushing to label these as conspiracy, lies, and misinformation will come back to bite scientists one day.

In saying that this virus could not possibly be lab engineered, you're saying that somehow you magically know all the research that's being done at the WIV or other labs that could be sharing strains with each other.

The genetic data alone can only take us so far. A whole year of waiting to track possible evidence surrounding a lab leak has disadvantaged this investigation.

For example, this preprint that was dropped on the same day as Limeng Yan's preprint on Sep 14.
zenodo.org/record/4063813…

As a postdoc who looks into origins on the side, it's beyond my capabilities to get the intel to confirm if what this preprint says is true. Most of the cited pages in this preprint are also preserved via archive.is but that makes it difficult to verify each fact.

I don't agree with the preprint entirely but there are very important directions for fact-finding presented in it.

What were the hospital guidance changes in late 2019?
What viral pathogen programs were ongoing in Wuhan?
What is in the WIV virus database that was taken offline?

What safety reports have been made besides that of the BSL4? Was there a 2019 inspection of labs in Wuhan and what were the findings?

What's up with these patents filed by the WIV for bat cages (June 2018) and a finger wound tourniquet (Nov 2019)?

In section 3, the preprint describes a score of events in late 2019 that suggest some kind of safety-related issue had occurred recently at labs in Wuhan and specifically the WIV, or possibly in response to the results of a recent inspection.

The preprint was written by @interne41914499 with help from @BillyBostickson @franciscodeasis @luigi_warren @TheSeeker268 and other internet sleuths.

This disturbs me. That large news/journalist orgs are not leading the charge in chasing down these important origins evidence.