This was NOT my experience on @WHO mission. As lead of animal/environment working group I found trust & openness w/ my China counterparts. We DID get access to critical new data throughout. We DID increase our understanding of likely spillover pathways. nytimes.com/2021/02/12/wor…
New data included env. & animal carcass testing, names of suppliers to Huanan Market, analyses of excess mortality in Hubei, range of covid-like symptoms for months prior, sequence data linked to early cases & site visits w/ unvetted live Q&A etc. All in report coming soon!
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.@WHO Press conference begins in Wuhan. The whole expert group is in a room just 100 yds away, watching on the big screen & live tweeting. @MarionKoopmans represents the expert group on the call. @Peterfoodsafety Team lead for WHO side & Dr. Liang Wannian, taking the lead here.
We're watching live on @cgtn - available in most countries if you want to listen in, or you can try to log on to the zoom.
Join the WHO press conference:
Zoom link: who-e.zoom.us/j/97848217705
Password: WHO+OMS+
Phone
Webinar ID: 978 4821 7705
Numeric Passcode for telephone: 67652470
International numbers available: who-e.zoom.us/u/abkVw3i1u
3:31 PM
Worth watching if the timezones work for you. Summary report will be released & evidence, results of joint work discussed. news.cgtn.com/news/2021-02-0…
Prob delay to around 4.45 or 5pm local time.
The two team leads will talk with the press - the China team lead Dr. Liang Wannian & the @WHO team lead Dr. Peter Ben Embarek. We'll be watching from a room round the corner - looking forward to watching!
This is becoming a pattern! Another person working for @realDonaldTrump who agitated for @NIHDirector to cancel our funding now being given Remdesivir which was tested w/ results from our grant. @RudyGiulianli you are welcome & I wish you a speedy recovery!foxnews.com/politics/rudy-…
Here's @RudyGiuliani advocating for our reseach funds to be canceled based on erroneous information
Here's his key 'witness' regurgitating these false conspiracy theories & somehow linking them to unproven accusations of election tinkering. independent.co.uk/news/world/ame…
Here's a fascinating paper (preprint) that analyzes relative influence of international scientific experts (purple) vs. other groups on discourse re. COVID. You can see how rapidly politically-motivated communities (green) took over the conversation in Feb 2020 (fig. 3d, e).
Relative size of political community (blue) vs. others on Twitter discussion of COVID-19. Nice visualization! Thanks to @MarionKoopmans for sending the link. Great analysis from @FraDurazzi & colleagues! Part of the @EuropeVeo that I'm now on Sci. Advisory Board of.
Despite headline, I can't find a paper that reports SARS-CoV or SARS-CoV-2 in foxes. Here is the @OIEAnimalHealth guidance this article refers to - no mention of foxes, although it broadly suggests should have heightened concern over all farmed mammals oie.int/fileadmin/Home…
Raccoon dogs, mink, ferrets, rabbits known to be infected in lab or farms w/ SARS-CoV-2. Other species known to be receptive to this virus or SARS-CoV (e.g. civets, cats, dogs), so ample reason for concern, increased surveillance etc.
More details on @WHO visit to China re. COVID origins. No WIV visit planned. I guess @WHO scientists looked at all published data & concluded, like almost all other virologists, that there's no evidence for it coming out of lab & lots for a natural origin. independent.co.uk/news/world/asi…
For those who believe lab leak, or bioengineered theory, or want to 'investigate' that, I believe ultimately they will be disappointed. Finding origins of SARS-CoV-2 will likely involve detailed, lengthy fieldwork, behavioral risk analysis, mapping of wildlife farms & trade..
We've done a lot already (see paper below, now accepted by @NatureComms), & we would be able to do much more to identify origins of COVID & risk of next one, but unfortunately same conspiracies led to our @NIH funding being frozen/terminated!! biorxiv.org/content/10.110…