Thread by @Ayjchan

The WHO-convened covid-19 origins study group is scrapping their overdue interim report amid "tensions between Beijing and Washington over the investigation and an appeal from one international group of scientists for a new probe."
wsj.com/articles/who-i…

Many thanks to the experts & scientists who organized the open letter which is the basis of the @WSJ news story.

The letter describes limitations of the WHO-convened global study and what a credible investigation into COVID-19 origins should look like. s.wsj.net/public/resourc…

And also thanks to @WSJ @betswrites @drewhinshaw @JNBPage for staying on this story & doggedly reporting on the origins of covid-19.

I really think this is just the beginning. It is unlikely that the world will just move on and not seek answers to where this pandemic came from.

Considering the great obstacles to accessing data and information relevant to the emergence of COVID-19, it will probably take several years or decades...

But eventually, I believe that technological advances and whistleblowers will reveal the truth behind the origins.

Meanwhile, it's important for scientists to hold each other accountable and ensure that official studies/investigations of the origins of COVID-19 meet scientific standards and are free of political manipulation.

It is our responsibility to call out compromised scientific work.

I anticipate that this open letter will soon receive backlash. Not actually targeting the content of the letter, but targeting the authorship.

This is a whole issue on its own - that so many key revelations have been the result of diligence by internet sleuths and outsiders.

There are a few virologists & biosecurity experts who co-wrote the letter, eg @canardbruno @DecrolyE @FilippaLentzos but the majority of the co-signatories are scientists in other fields.

Why are we the ones writing an open letter to call for a full international investigation?

Many experts in directly relevant fields have not made public statements criticizing the @WHO convened study of the origins of COVID-19.

Many experts in directly relevant fields have not demanded a transparent investigation of SARS2 possibly emerging from a lab-related incident.

If I see any top experts in virology criticizing the open letter later, I’m going to ask them what they’ve done so far to call for a credible, transparent investigation into the origins of covid-19.

Are they happy with the @WHO convened collaborative process of discovery?

One necessary point of clarification on the letter: the majority of signatories wrote it together; it wasn’t written by 1 person & passed around for signatures; we didn’t do open call for signatures because we prioritized speed of getting the statement out over no. of signatures.

There is no plan to do an open call for signatures.

But if scientists are keen to contribute to a future letter, I suspect there will be another joint effort addressing the full report by the @WHO convened team. If you’re so inclined please connect with @JamieMetzl or @gdemaneuf