“Half-truths and distorted information have obscured an accurate accounting of the lab's functions and activities, which were more routine than how they’ve been portrayed in the media, she said.” bloomberg.com/news/features/…
“The concrete, bunker-style building has the highest biosafety designation, and requires air, water and waste to be filtered and sterilized before it leaves the facility.” bloomberg.com/news/features/…
“There were strict protocols and requirements aimed at containing the pathogens being studied, Anderson said, and researchers underwent 45 hours of training to be certified to work independently in the lab.” bloomberg.com/news/features/…
👏45 👏hours 👏of 👏training👏
“Anderson said no one she knew at the Wuhan institute was ill toward the end of 2019. Moreover, there is a procedure for reporting symptoms that correspond with the pathogens handled in high-risk containment labs.” bloomberg.com/news/features/…
“If people were sick, I assume that I would have been sick—and I wasn’t,” she said “I was tested for coronavirus in Singapore before I was vaccinated, and had never had it”
Re GOF: “Getting authorization to create a virus in this way typically requires many layers of approval, and there are scientific best practices that put strict limits on this kind of work.” bloomberg.com/news/features/…
“Even if such a gain of function effort got clearance, it’s hard to achieve, Anderson said. The technique is called reverse genetics.
“It’s exceedingly difficult to actually make it work when you want it to work,” she said.“ bloomberg.com/news/features/…
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To gauge what might happen going forward with the delta variant, @WNYC / @Gothamist asked virologists, immunologists and epidemiologists to break down how the delta variant could affect New Yorkers based on their vaccine status. gothamist.com/news/why-the-d…
But just how bad could it be? I asked the folks @PHICORteam to sketch out an outbreak model
Imagine the Bronx had never experienced COVID. Ok, now what happens if you drop 10 people with alpha, delta or the original strain into that unacquainted community gothamist.com/news/why-the-d…
"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.” - @mlipsitchvice.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.."
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…
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...
Plus BSL-4 labs are built upon the principles of BSL-3.
@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…