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Alina Chan Profile picture
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20 May, 14 tweets, 10 min read
I’m putting together a primer pack of must-read layperson articles for anyone who’s just getting into the topic of whether SARS-CoV-2 could have come from a lab in Wuhan.

In no order of preference or chronology:
@rowanjacobsen @BostonMagazine
bostonmagazine.com/news/2020/09/0…
Article in @CNET by @dctrjack
cnet.com/features/the-c…
The infamous “Lab Leak Hypothesis” by @nicholsonbaker8 in @NYMag

nymag.com/intelligencer/…
Another from @rowanjacobsen but in @Newsweek
newsweek.com/humans-not-ani…
A piece I co-authored with @mattwridley originally published in the @Telegraph but the extended version is available on Matt’s website: rationaloptimist.com/8691

telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/0…
On problems with the WIV’s first paper on SARS2 @Minervanett @Akselfrids

minervanett.no/a/364540
Can’t miss Nicholas Wade’s article that was posted in @Medium and also @BulletinAtomic

nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covi…
This is a must-must-read by @ianbirrell in @unherd because it describes the international group of individuals that has been doing the bulk of the investigative work in the past 1.5 years on #OriginsofCovid

unherd.com/2021/04/the-co…
On the China-WHO joint study and the first open letter by scientists calling for a full forensic investigation of the origins of covid-19 @WSJ @betswrites @drewhinshaw @JNBPage
wsj.com/articles/who-i…
To advocate for the devil, this is the most famous piece arguing that no lab-based scenarios are plausible. Although one of the authors has already changed his mind recently & said it was “screwed up” for bat virus research to be done at BSL2 at the WIV.

nature.com/articles/s4159…
Last but obviously not least - our recent letter in @ScienceMagazine organized by @jbloom_lab @DavidRelman showing that prominent scientists in relevant disciplines support a credible and rigorous investigation into both natural & lab origin hypotheses.

science.sciencemag.org/content/372/65…
Two more related articles:

Can we tell if a virus was bioengineered? by @ScolesSarah

futurehuman.medium.com/how-do-we-know…
And on the real frequency of lab leaks @USATODAY @alisonannyoung

usatoday.com/in-depth/opini…
And if you prefer audio, I've been told this was my best podcast interview so far @marysdesk @Slate

slate.com/podcasts/what-…

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Alina Chan Profile picture
21 May
One year ago, any lab-based hypothesis of the #OriginOfCOVID19 was widely reported to be a debunked conspiracy theory propagated by d/misinformants.

Today some scientists are still arguing about how likely/unlikely a lab origin is, but this will no longer stop an investigation.
The CIA director and director of national intelligence are still investigating natural vs lab origins.
There’s a new committee formed by highly respected scientists who are laying the groundwork for a national commission on covid-19. One of its focuses is the origins of covid-19.
Read 7 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
20 May
Peter Daszak told @60Minutes @LesleyRStahl "We didn't see any evidence of any false reporting or cover-up in the work that we did in China."

Now he's told @KHN @ArthurAllen202 "There are plenty of reasons to question China’s openness and transparency."
cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-…
March 2020: "you know what a scientific statement is and you know what a political statement is. We had no problem distinguishing between the two."

May 2020: “You can never definitively say that what China is telling us is correct.”
khn.org/news/article/w… ImageImage
Sorry, 2021 for both - I've lost track of time during the pandemic!
Read 4 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
20 May
"“These spillovers take years,” Gray says. “It’s not like in the movies. They go through different steps to infect humans.” So far indications are that the chimeric virus has not evolved to transmit efficiently between people."
sciencemag.org/news/2021/05/t…
To find these steps for SARS2, I'd say that getting access to blood samples banked in Chinese cities prior to Dec 2019 is important.

Granting international experts access to the caves and regions in Yunnan, China where SARS2's closest relatives were found is also important.
It's already very surprising that the Chinese government has -still- not performed these basic checks to find the source of SARS2 / COVID-19 and determine when it first emerged in Wuhan.
cnn.com/2021/02/21/chi…
Read 5 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
19 May
Unique pov by @NathanJRobinson @curaffairs #originsofcovid

"As a citizen of the U.S. whose voting power is supposed to be used to ensure its government acts properly, I found all of a sudden that the question of the virus’s origin had to matter to me."

currentaffairs.org/2021/05/the-st…
"if the virus “did indeed escape from the Wuhan institute, then the NIH will find itself in the terrible position of having funded a disastrous experiment that led to death of more than 3 million worldwide... the more I thought about it, the more disturbed I was."
"One of the claims that I think Wade’s article proves beyond a reasonable doubt is that our understanding of COVID’s origins has been compromised by the involvement of a man named Peter Daszak." 🤣
Read 5 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
18 May
In my view, this is a problematic and polarizing coverage of the #OriginsofCOVID x the role of scientists in this situation x the impact of US politics.

Ironic for an article titled "Don't Politicize the Lab-Leak Theory" @TheAtlantic

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
It joins a list of apologist articles for why journalists didn't take the lab leak hypothesis seriously in early 2020 even though some top scientists and experts were already clearly explaining publicly and to journalists that a lab escape was plausible.

Short answer: Trump.
"When Chinese scientists cracked the virus’s genetic code early in January 2020, they promptly posted full results for all to read. That did not seem to most Western scientists to be the behavior of conspirators."
Read 8 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
17 May
Today, a thread debunking (unintentional) misinformation on the origins of covid-19 / SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Starting with the top 10 easily fact-checked ideas or statements that are not true, although a shocking number of scientists still think these are true.
(1) (FALSE) Before COVID, SARS research was done in a BSL4 lab at the WIV.

Actually, SARS research, even the (humanized) animal infection experiments were conducted at BSL2/3.

See @ScienceMagazine interview of the PI at the Wuhan Institute of Virology: sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/t…
(2) (FALSE) There is no precedent of SARS viruses escaping from a laboratory.

Actually, SARS virus escaped from labs at least 4 times in 3 countries within a year. One of the labs was a BSL4 lab. Investigators said that SARS virus could have escaped 4 times from a Beijing lab.
Read 13 tweets

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