"Andersen, a professor at the Scripps Research Institute, tweeted this week that "we seriously considered a lab leak a possibility," but reconsidered upon further review of the evidence..."
"Andersen’s use of the term “lab leak” could be confusing, however, because he was talking in the emails about the question of whether the virus had been modified or engineered."
"Another theory, experts say, is that scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were studying samples of the virus taken from bats, and a mishap allowed it to escape without it ever having been modified. That could mean it arose in nature, but leaked from the lab."
"Most scientists who have examined the virus don’t see any evidence that it was genetically modified. Scientists who argue against the lab leak theory have often conflated the two distinct scenarios."
"In fact, no examination of the virus’s genetic footprint can reveal whether the virus, taken from its natural state, was being studied in a lab. Nor can the virus’s genetic makeup speak to whether it spread to humans in Wuhan as a result of a lab accident."
👏Absolutely correct
Yet it seems certain scientists, through sloppy terminology, selective answering of questions, or answering a different question than what was asked, are content to perpetuate the confusion that "no engineering" = "no lab leak"
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There have been a lot of stories recently on the search into COVID19/SARSCoV2 origins, but they have been written to tell stories of intrigue or mystery, not to summarize known facts.
Thus I thought it might be useful to succinctly summarize what we actually know...
1/n
I'll say from the outset we know zero about where sarscov2 itself came from, so the only facts we can list are those that could be proximally relevant. That is, each of these facts is either about SARSCoV2 discovery or just one potential step removed from SARSCoV2 origins.
2/n
First, the briefest bit of background: SARSCoV2 is in the clade or coronaviruses called the sarbecoviruses, named after its first known member, SARSCoV1, the cause of SARS discovered in 2002. SARSCoV1 and SARSCoV2 are 80% identical.
3/n
The advantage of the RNA vax is their simplicity. They encode only the spike protein because it's the viral protein targeted by most of the antibodies that prevent viral entry. Another way to put it is Abs to the right place on spike are sufficient to block entry. (image Siemens)
The adenovirus vax also encode only spike but express it from Ad. Both types elicit high levels of neutralizing antibodies (nAbs) after just one dose. RNA is better here; in fact 1 dose of RNA gives you similar nAb levels to natural infection.
Interesting excerpt:
'Had the WIV been actively working on RaTG13 during the seven years since they discovered it? Peter Daszak said no: they had never used the virus because it wasn't similar enough to the original SARS...
'..."We thought it's interesting, but not high-risk," he told Wired. "So we didn't do anything about it and put it in the freezer."
A lesson on proper trial design: Was thinking, if nAb levels at 3% of convalescent plasma (CP) prevent severe COVID (nature.com/articles/s4159…) then infusing 1U of CP (5% body volume) should prevent death.
Of course it was the @nytimes who wrote the obituary for convalescent plasma. Maybe nothing factually wrong in their stories, but their writers generally lack the training to dig deeper and find the signal in the noise.
"When a treatment fails, which is often, it can be difficult for its strongest proponents to let it go. Eventually, studies did emerge to suggest that under the right conditions, plasma might help."
Sloppy @nytimes. 1st sentence implies CP failed. 2nd says success. Which is it?
It's inactivated vaccine week, apparently. Earlier we had the publication of Phase 3 Sinopharm data. Today we have the announcement of *final* Phase 3 Covaxin data. The results are good: 78% efficacy overall. 1/4
Some people are wondering, with some scientists expressing opposing views about the possiblity of a lab leak in COVID19 origins, how do they know who to trust? In this thread I describe how to recognize the rhetorical devices or fallacies used to push weakly supported views.
1/🧵
First some background. Scientists face the situation of figuring out the steps that lead to an outcome all the time. For example it’s what molecular biologists do on a daily basis to work out the molecular reactions that underlie initially mysterious biological events.
2/🧵
We start by brainstorming all the possible hypotheses that are consistent with the known outcome *the more the better* to makes sure we don't miss the right answer. Then we gather data that can help rule out one hypothesis or not.
3/🧵