Thread by @Ayjchan

Another stunning piece by @rowanjacobsen @techreview of a top coronavirus expert, Ralph Baric.

"[Baric] wants to know what barriers were in place to keep a pathogen from slipping out into Wuhan’s population of 13 million, and possibly to the world."

technologyreview.com/2021/06/29/102…

@rowanjacobsen @techreview I would like to remind how incredibly difficult it was to even raise the -possibility- much less the plausibility of a lab leak one year ago.

Today many experts are saying that they always said a lab leak was possible and should be investigated. When? Where?

@rowanjacobsen @techreview In my view, the "consensus" has only recently (May 2021) become reasonable. That a large portion of scientists and journalists are finally saying "Of course we need to investigate all possible scenarios, including a lab leak!"

@rowanjacobsen @techreview And it's unfortunate, the scientists who staked their reputations+careers to bring attention to lab origins over the past year are now painted as the unreasonable ones who "believe" in the lab leak theory.

We believe it should be investigated. That's what we've said for 1+ year.

@rowanjacobsen @techreview And indeed that's what a few scientists & journalists have been doing for months: investigating the #OriginsOfCovid as best as they can from the publicly available info and through the intelligence generated by sleuths.

It's not just belief. It's 1+ year of hard work.

@rowanjacobsen @techreview This is an urgent and important issue that impacts pandemic preparedness and pathogen research worldwide 🌎🌍🌏 The same type of research was again funded through EcoHealth Alliance but now done outside of China; project start 2020-06-17
grantome.com/grant/NIH/U01-…

@rowanjacobsen @techreview New EHA project in🇸🇬🇹🇭🇲🇾
"Identify, characterize and rank spillover risk of high zoonotic potential viruses.. archived wildlife samples.. wildlife surveillance.. identify novel viruses.. characterized to assess risk of spillover.. receptor binding, cell culture.. humanized mouse"

@rowanjacobsen @techreview So, what barriers are now in place to keep a pathogen from slipping out into Singapore, Bangkok, or 3 different Malaysian cities’ populations of 10s of million, and possibly to the world?