#DRASTIC in Der Spiegel! Sehr gut, meine Damen!
spiegel.de/ausland/corona…
1. Paywall...some screenshots to follow
2. The mentions of our work

""Secondly, in the spring of 2020, a global network of internet researchers begins the search for the origin of the pandemic and uncovers astonishing details."
3. @TheSeeker268 mentioned

"In May 2020, a Twitter user with the pseudonym TheSeeker268 finds two scientific papers from China on the internet: a master's thesis written in 2013 and a doctoral thesis from 2016....."
4. Sceptical Internet Users ;)

"RaTG13 is the virus from which a short genetic sequence with the designation 4991 was isolated years ago in the copper mine..
Shi later admits this, only after sceptical internet users dug through genome databases & drew attention to the renaming"
5. Some "Drastic" members remain anonymous and cannot be identified in the great Spiegel...?

"Some "Drastic" members remain anonymous and can only be reached via a common email address."

drasticgroup@protonmail.com

Nice talking to you, Aleksander Sarovic!
6. Some of course are happy to talk

"Another is Gilles Demaneuf, who works as a data scientist. When a new epidemic emerged in the early 2020s, he "sensed something bad was coming". At that time, however, little was known about the new epidemic: "No one had the necessary data"
7. A podcast is available here

Das Rätsel von Wuhan

podcasts.podinstall.com/der-spiegel-sp…
8. The Anti-Spiegel

An amusing critique from Spiegel's Arch Enemy

anti-spiegel.ru/2021/wie-der-s…

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Billy Bostickson 🏴👁&👁 🆓

Billy Bostickson 🏴👁&👁 🆓 Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @BillyBostickson

May 9
“We are not a Cult”

DRASTIC and the investigative network that broke the Corona laboratory taboo

Must Read Interview!

The hard working "Two Ronnies" of DRASTIC

@gdemaneuf & @BillyBostickson

Interviewed by @franzbecchi for @berlinerzeitung

berliner-zeitung.de/politik-gesell…
1. Who are the “pandemic detectives”?

We speak with 2 of DRASTIC's prominent members:

@gdemaneuf (a data scientist & engineer)

and @BillyBostickson, longtime activist who was formerly part of opposition networks in China & HK & who operates anonymously for security reasons.
@gdemaneuf 2. My Responses

How did DRASTIC come about?

I started in January 2020, triggered by an article by Dan Sirotkin on the origins of the virus.

I connected with people like @R_H_Ebright & others on Twitter.

In May 2020, I chose the name "DRASTIC" for this decentralized group.
Read 18 tweets
May 8
22. Biased Sampling distorts Geography!

They use a dataset skewed toward Yunnan & Laos (p. 16), leading to phylogeographic models that place SARS-CoV ancestors far from Wuhan & Guangdong (p. 12).

This sampling bias undermines the reliability of their geographic inferences.
23. Neglecting Alternative Hypotheses

No SARS-CoV-like viruses near emergence sites?

They completely overlook non-bat reservoirs, like civets or pangolins, which could explain local circulation (p. 15).

This omission weakens their claim of distant ancestor origins (p. 12).
24. Inconsistent Molecular Clock Rates

The paper misuses variable NRR-specific clock rates, which give inconsistent SARS-CoV ancestor dates (e.g., 1944–2014 for SARS-CoV-2, p. 9).

Without any validation of bat-specific rates, this approach has no rational grounding (p. 14).
Read 33 tweets
May 8
5. Why did they resort to using the POW model?

To show that :

"our inferences of the time of the ancestors of human SARS-CoVs and their closest bat sarbecoviruses are UNBIASED"
6. Captain Obvious Strikes Again (1)

"we show that the ancestors of SARS-CoV-1 & SARS-CoV-2 likely circulated in horseshoe bat populations 100s to 1000s km away from the sites of the emergence of these viruses in humans & as recently as one to six years prior to this emergence"
7. Captain Obvious Strikes Again (2)

"Our findings indicate that there would not have been sufficient time for the direct bat virus ancestor to reach the locations of emergence of the human SARS-CoVs via normal dispersal through bat populations alone"
Read 12 tweets
May 8
1. Last sick joke of the Zoonati?

Fragments of human SARS-CoVs share recent common ancestors with bat viruses

SARS-CoV-like viruses have circulated in Asia for millennia

Ancestors of human SARS-CoVs likely circulated in China & Laos

Ancestors traveled unexpectedly fast
2. No Pangolins allowed!

There is insufficient temporal signal when calibrating a molecular clock using tip dating with sarbecoviruses sampled from bats & pangolins, likely as a consequence of limited sampling across space & time.

Therefore, we used SARS-CoV-1 genomes!
3. Definitely no pangolins!

As sampling locations of SARS-CoV-1, 2 & pangolin sarbecoviruses likely do not represent where their direct bat virus ancestors circulated, we EXCLUDED their locations from phylogeographic analyses to avoid the IMPACT of dispersal of non-bat hosts!
Read 24 tweets
May 4
1⃣ Virological 🦠 Whistleblower 😮‍💨?

"I worked with researchers in this space - virology + combatting future pandemics - in the decade before the pandemic".
2⃣ One Fact

"The one fact that the last 5 years never readily disclosed is that the core ideology of this community of researchers was fundamentally divided"
3⃣ Lab based creation of super-viruses

"About half of the researchers, including many leading virologists whose names appeared in the news, believed and argued passionately for the lab-based creation of super-viruses and super-bacteria"
Read 12 tweets
Apr 23
1. The Second Lab Leak

Turning and turning in the petri dish,
The scientists cannot hear the warnings;
Genes recombine; the barriers cannot hold,
Evil virology is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
2. The Second Lab Leak

The best lack critical thinking, while the professors
Are full of furious bias.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the cover up is now banned?
Lab Leak! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Human Folly
Troubles my sight:
3. Somewhere in Wuhan

somewhere in the cell lines of a Chinese laboratory
A shape with pangolin body and the head of a bat,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its long tongue, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant molested bats.
Read 6 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(