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2 Jul, 14 tweets, 13 min read
1/H

One of the leading SARS-CoV-2 lab conspiracy theorists from DRASTIC, @TheSeeker268, has a new article. I want to focus on its discussion of miners since it shows how ridiculous conspiracists can be.





theweek.in/theweek/cover/…
2/H

Like many other aspects of lab leak conspiracy theories, the miners point was debunked for a year or more. But conspiracists peddle it anyway, hoping people are uninformed, or paranoid, or... enough to fall for it.



The point:
3/H

An obvious problem:
SARS-CoV-2 almost certainly did not come from RaTG13 (a.k.a. BtCov/4991), the mentioned coronavirus from the mine.

This has been known for at least a year.


4/H

The viruses are related cousins, not one descended from the other.

"the difference at neutral sites was 17%, suggesting the divergence between the two viruses [RatG13 and SARS-CoV-2] is much larger than previously estimated."
academic.oup.com/nsr/article/7/…

europeanreview.org/wp/wp-content/…
5/H

This creates a problem for conspiracists:
How can they use RaTG13 + the miners to prop up paranoia, if it's clear a lab didn't make SARS-CoV-2 from RatG13?

@edwardcholmes:
"SARS-CoV-2 was not derived from RaTG13."
sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/n…

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bi…
6/H

One tactic conspiracists settled on is to *lie.* They pretend they didn't insinuate SARS-CoV-2 came from RaTG13.

Problem with that is we know they said it, including saying it to me a year ago. We have the receipts. 🙂



7/H

Below DRASTIC member Rossana Segreto (@Rossana38510044) makes the insinuation to me, along with a link to an article where DRASTIC member Yuri Deigin (@ydeigin) makes the insinuation was well:

archive.is/cujN1#selectio…

8/Y

Alexander Panchin (@Scinquisitor) + Alexander Tyshkovskiy rebutted Segreto + Deigin's insinuation:

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bi…


Segreto + Deigin's responded by feigning shock that anyone would suggest they made that claim. 🙄

web.archive.org/web/2021063010…
9/Y

There's a laundry list of other problems with the "RaTG13 / Mojiang mine" narrative. I + others have pointed them out for over a year.

Credit to @viralphenomics in particular for his work on this.

drive.google.com/file/d/1kAHSEx…



10/Y

Particularly interesting is how conspiracists emphasize researchers looking at coronaviruses in the mine:
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

Yet the conspiracists don't emphasize researchers looking at other pathogens in the mine.

I wonder why...🤔

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
11/Y

So the next time you hear SARS-CoV-2 lab conspiracists act like they have some brilliant new insight the mainstream just won't address:

They're probably pretending + their point was likely already addressed multiple times.



researchgate.net/profile/G_Mich…
12/Y

Lab conspiracists really are like other science denialists.

And I forgot to mention another tactic:
Pretend there were papers saying SARS-CoV-2 descended from RaTG13.

Debunked in parts 3/H, 4/H, and 5/H. Hence why @TheSeeker268 can't support it.

13/Y

A 3rd tactic is to make the baseless claim that RaTG13 is fake.

This is a common trope among conspiracy theorists, and helps them evade falsification of their claims.

@johnfocook + @STWorg, page 7:
web.archive.org/web/2020082102…


14/Y

Re: "3rd tactic is to make the baseless claim that RaTG13 is fake.
This is a common trope among conspiracy theorists, and helps them evade falsification of their claims"

Can be done by JAQing off:

rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_aski…


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More from @AtomsksSanakan

Atomsk's Sanakan Profile picture
30 Jun
PaperOfTheDay

Contrarians should admit they were wrong about IFR in Sweden





"Multianalyte serology in home-sampled blood enables an unbiased assessment of the immune response against SARS-CoV-2"
nature.com/articles/s4146…
Context:

Public Health Agency of Sweden:
"Globally, it is estimated that 0.5–1 percent of those who are infected with COVID-19 die"
web.archive.org/web/2020103000…

"point estimate of the IFR [in Stockholm] is 0.6%, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.4–1.1%"
folkhalsomyndigheten.se/contentassets/…
Stockholm:
"peak [IFR] was 1.34% (95%CI[0.90, 1.89]), and would extrapolate to 0.61% (95%CI[0.41, 0.86] [...])"
medrxiv.org/content/10.110…

Sweden:
"IFR of 0.74 %"
medrxiv.org/content/10.110…

Sweden:
"estimated to 0.40; 0.40; 0.37; 0.28 and 0.27"
medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
Read 4 tweets
Atomsk's Sanakan Profile picture
29 Jun
1/G

On other threads I criticized estimates of COVID-19's fatality. Here I'll highlight the best estimate I've seen:
0.9% from Neil Ferguson's team at Imperial College.

It's being falsely criticized again.
(h/t @thereal_truther)



tabletmag.com/sections/news/… Image
2/G

Ideologues often criticize the 0.9% estimate in order to downplay the severity of COVID-19 + evade policies they dislike. John Ioannidis resorted to that

judithcurry.com/2020/04/01/imp…
cato.org/blog/how-one-m…
freopp.org/jay-bhattachar…
reason.com/2021/06/22/the…

Image
3/G

In March 2020, Ferguson's team applied work from Verity et al. on China, to Great Britain (GB).

That led to an estimate of 0.9% of SARS-CoV-2-infected people dying of COVID-19; i.e. 0.9% infection fatality rate (IFR).



spiral.imperial.ac.uk:8443/bitstream/1004… Image
Read 13 tweets
Atomsk's Sanakan Profile picture
28 Jun
1/U

Sometimes John Ioannidis just makes me laugh. 😀

In the slide below, Ioannidis discusses age-specific IFR (infection fatality rate), i.e. what proportion of SARS-CoV-2-infected people die of the disease COVID-19 at various ages.

22:23 - 23:18:
2/U

Here's the work Ioannidis is likely referring to:

Axfors (Ioannidis is the lead author)
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

Levin (from @GidMK + @BillHanage)
link.springer.com/article/10.100…

O'Driscoll
nature.com/articles/s4158…

CDC
web.archive.org/web/2021032419…

3/U

Ioannidis says his Axfors estimates mostly agree with O'Driscoll:

from 23:04


Yet experts noted for around year that his Axfors estimate is a low outlier.

So what's going on here?

publichealthontario.ca/-/media/docume…
Read 12 tweets
Atomsk's Sanakan Profile picture
28 Jun
1/T

This thread will look at some statements in @zeynep's NYT article on lab leak conspiracism.

Some preliminary notes first.






nytimes.com/2021/06/25/opi…
[archive.is/hFqmR]
2/T

I + others argued with lab conspiracists for over a year. We saw their arguments + addressed them in detail; that's how we know they're nonsense.

I'll thus often link to threads that explain points in detail, so I don't have to rehash it all here.

3/T

You often need serology (i.e. antibody) studies to tell who's been infected, since many infections are missed otherwise.

Those studies show more prior infections with SARS-like viruses.




archive.is/hFqmR#selectio…
Read 21 tweets
Atomsk's Sanakan Profile picture
27 Jun
1/F

SARS-CoV-2 lab conspiracy theorists are again misrepresenting scientific fields they have not bothered to try to understand.

This time they're applying their paranoid distortions to immunology. So that deserves a thread.



Image
2/F

When SARS-CoV-2 infects a person, the person's immune system increases production of proteins known as antibodies that bind to SARS-CoV-2.

So if SARS-CoV-2 escaped from the WIV by infecting staff, then that would show up in antibody tests.

Yet...
who.int/docs/default-s… Image
3/F

Conspiracists don't like that result, so they abuse an antibody study I discussed awhile back.

That study estimates ~4% of Wuhan had increased antibody levels; i.e. ~4% seroprevalence, so ~4% of people previously infected.



thelancet.com/journals/lanwp… Image
Read 11 tweets
Atomsk's Sanakan Profile picture
24 Jun
1/P

Interesting paper below co-authored by John Ioannidis, published in a journal Ioannidis was editor-in-chief of for a decade.

It makes some interesting points, but also illustrates the dangers of under-estimating COVID-19.



ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P… Image
2/P

Let's start with 2 concepts:
- infection fatality rate (IFR)
- herd immunity

The 'herd immunity threshold' is the proportion of people who need to be immune to infection in order for the pandemic to not accelerate, even if we lived life like usual.

3/P

Proteins known as antibodies (+ the immune cells that make them, such as B cells / plasma cells) are crucial for preventing re-infection, + thus to getting herd immunity.

Seroprevalence studies measure how many people have increased antibodies levels
Image
Read 20 tweets

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