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Alina Chan Profile picture
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10 Feb, 4 tweets, 3 min read
“Daszak responded to reports that the U.S. government wishes to independently verify any findings of the WHO team, by impugning the motives of President Joe Biden and casting aspersions on the integrity of the U.S. intelligence community.” rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-who-covi…
Spot-on analysis by @RogerPielkeJr of why the press conference is problematic for @WHO “A future departure from initial claims.. can easily be seen (and spun) as delegitimizing of the committee’s work. So the origins committee is now effectively locked in to these conclusions..”
Please see the @StateDept response to the @WHO #originsofcovid investigation here state.gov/briefings/depa…
@StateDept did not want to say whether or not they agreed with @WHO that #laborigins investigations should cease.

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Alina Chan Profile picture
11 Feb
I think, that was a good try @WHO to get actual data from China.

But now that it looks like that's not going to work, we should be setting up independent and credible investigations into the origins.
If @WHO is going to investigate Italy, SE Asia, and #popsicleorigins

We need actual teams that can investigate zoonotic spillover and #laborigins - preferably with international representation and absence of COIs/pre-existing relationships that could discredit investigation.
One major weakness of the WHO investigation was that there was no other ongoing investigation that could hold it accountable or that WHO could use as leverage to force more transparency from China. No, the Lancet investigation headed by Peter Daszak obvs doesn't count.
Read 5 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
11 Feb
Dominic Dwyer, a member of the WHO team, on whether the covid virus could've originated from a lab accident: “Now, whether we were shown everything? You can never know. The group wasn’t designed to go and do a forensic examination of lab practice.”
nature.com/articles/d4158…
WHO team chatted w Wuhan scientists, voted if lab origins were likely. This doesn't count as an investigation into #laborigins I hope @WHO knows that. "you don't want to jump to a conclusion based on several hours of conversation with Chinese scientists"
washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pac…
Jesse Bloom, virologist @fredhutch "surprised to see some members of the team dismiss the accidental lab leak theory while seeming to suggest, without any specific evidence, the possibility that frozen food might have played a role."
washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pac…
Read 9 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
11 Feb
On the recent paper describing new SARS2-like viruses in Thailand, the big takeaways for me:

The closest relatives to SARS2 are still from inside China whether you count it by genome, RdRp, or Spike RBD.

The ones from Thailand don't use human ACE2.

nature.com/articles/s4146…
I think sampling bats for viruses is worthwhile as long as care is taken not to introduce SARS2 from human personnel into wildlife while going on these expeditions.

BUT I don't think that hunting for bat CoVs in SE Asia is going to answer how this pandemic got started in Wuhan.
You're just going further and further away from ground zero. Wuhan (top dot), Kunming, Yunnan, China (middle dot) where the Mojiang miners and RaTG13 was collected, and Chachoengsao, Thailand (bottom dot) where the new bat CoVs were collected.
Read 12 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
10 Feb
I want to get a bit serious about the @WHO's dismissal of lab escape as a potential origins of the covid virus.

I'm keen to see their full report. However, the handling of the current pandemic shows that a country can get likely a pass on lab escape (or bioweapons) as long as...
(1) They don't publish their research in real time - this already isn't happening in science, and why would you publish original data/seqs if you were working covertly on pathogens?

(2) They don't give you access to their lab records or data, and tell you they have good safety.
The question is what we're giving up in the future so that we can pretend this pandemic's origin is resolved today.

Do we need another mysterious outbreak in a city with a renowned pathogen lab in the next decade before we get serious about asking what's happening in these labs?
Read 8 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
9 Feb
@who going to investigate Covid-19 originating from frozen foods rather than #laborigins because lab leak too unlikely based on what the Wuhan lab personnel told them.
Not too confident that this @who team has much insight to the lab leak hypothesis - the WIV’s SARS research was done at BL2 and BL3 all these years, not BL4. Team could benefit from a lab leak/biosecurity expert weighing in on their report.
So the team says the virus was spreading before the Huanan market but that intermediate host is still the most likely #originsofcovid I’m keen to see the evidence that points to an intermediate host. Also, no mention of pangolins now? #pangolinpapers
Read 42 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
7 Feb
Public service: This is now the link to the archived Fact Sheet released by the previous State Department concerning activities at the Wuhan Institute of Virology that could point to possible #laborigins of the covid-19 virus.
2017-2021.state.gov/fact-sheet-act…
@washingtonpost says "If the U.S. government possesses information to corroborate that statement, it should release it, including declassifying any intelligence." washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
The situation right now, I presume, is that the intelligence cannot be declassified because of endangering the source(s).

In that case, please create a curated list of non-gov people who can see this intelligence. There is a lot at stake.
Read 31 tweets

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