Unlike the conversations about masks and variants, this time, the evidence for a lab leak hasn’t changed. Which is to say: there isn’t any yet.

“I think almost everybody agrees that the facts are very thin.” -@mlipsitch

🎯: @MaddieOBender v @motherboard
vice.com/en/article/n7b…
"This is about the bounds of what's worth following up as a possibility, which is different from a standard scientific debate. It's how to interpret the scantiness of the evidence, rather than how to interpret the evidence.” - @mlipsitch vice.com/en/article/n7b…
"The scientists interviewed for this story advocated for further research and investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, including the possibility of a lab leak, but all agreed that there is currently no solid evidence suggesting anything other than a natural spillover.."
I'm also just glad that other people recognize that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were doing a bit the other day.
vice.com/en/article/n7b…

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More from @MoNscience

8 Jun
Widespread Hunger Persists For Many Families In New York Even As The Economy Recovers

✍️: @clewisreports and our new data reporter @jeffwilen (!!!)

via @WNYC / @Gothamist
gothamist.com/food/widesprea…
About 12% of adults statewide aren’t getting enough to eat from week to week, according to the latest rolling survey from @nys_health. That’s only down slightly from a mid-pandemic peak of approximately 14%. gothamist.com/food/widesprea…
But Black and Hispanic New Yorkers continue to go hungry at dramatically higher rates than their white neighbors. gothamist.com/food/widesprea…
Read 6 tweets
6 Jun
@justinulysses @BeeBrookshire @Anna_Rothschild @amymaxmen The most vocal proponents of lab leak consistently posit lab manipulation of some variety.

Why?

Because as far as we know Shi Zheng-Li’s lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology collected bat samples from 2010-2015...
@justinulysses @BeeBrookshire @Anna_Rothschild @amymaxmen If those field teams had caught SARS-CoV-2 back then, it should have sparked outbreaks years ago.

Ok, so what’s left?

The WIV team safely brought SARS2 (or a close relative) back to their lab between 2010-2015 but then was experimenting with it in 2019. This is a long shot...
@justinulysses @BeeBrookshire @Anna_Rothschild @amymaxmen ...and it’s speculation.

Alternatively, the lab had continued field surveys into 2019 without telling anyone (speculation bordering on conspiracy theory)...
Read 4 tweets
5 Jun
@MMKavanagh That’s why that paragraph in @KatherineEban’s VF story is so misleading:

BSL-3 labs are specifically designed to study respiratory pathogens like SARS-CoV-2. cdc.gov/training/quick… Image
@MMKavanagh @KatherineEban People study anthrax in BSL-3 labs. Anthrax! ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK53535…

Plus BSL-4 labs are built upon the principles of BSL-3. Image
@MMKavanagh @KatherineEban While BSL-4 labs are recognized for their pressurized suits and vacuumed-sealed double doors, BSL-3 labs also take extra precautions with ventilation...because again, BSL-3 labs are meant for respiratory pathogens. cdc.gov/labs/pdf/SF__1… ImageImageImageImage
Read 4 tweets
4 Jun
Fauci’s reply in the first email listed among BuzzFeed’s 3,200-pg FOIA is my mental response to just so many emails...
+1 on @DrJAshton. Great medical reporter.
Backstory: Fauci receives a boatload of reports to read every day. His staff helps to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Read 5 tweets
26 May
"To explain where SARS-CoV-2 came from, look at processes with scientific explanations and precedents."

@d_samorodnitsky gets it.

(via @massivesci) massivesci.com/articles/sars-…
"If the question is “are both hypotheses possible?” the answer is yes. Both are possible.

If the question “are they equally likely?” the answer is absolutely not." massivesci.com/articles/sars-…
"It’s scientific malpractice to pretend that one idea is equally as meritorious as the other. The lab-leak hypothesis is a scientific deus ex machina, a narrative shortcut that points a finger at a specific set of bad actors." massivesci.com/articles/sars-…
Read 4 tweets
26 May
@nattyover 👋👋👋👋👋

What would you like to know, Natalie? Do you have any other objections outside of the single tweet you've pulled from a thread of 30ish tweets?
@nattyover If you check the history books, you'll find that several science writers have covered this topic... theatlantic.com/science/archiv…
Read 9 tweets

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