Looking forward to more details on how the “dream team” helped Kristian Andersen shift from 60-70% sure Covid-19 came from a lab to “we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible” and “rules out laboratory manipulation”. thetimes.co.uk/article/sage-a…
Two days later, Feb 3, a different but overlapping panel of experts were convened and considered writing in a separate letter that unintentional release from a lab could not be precluded.
https://twitter.com/ayjchan/status/1339236756235890689
Although by then Andersen had already progressed from “some of the features (potentially) look engineered” (Jan 31) to…
https://twitter.com/ayjchan/status/1339245172731875330
So I’m trying to understand what happened in the span of 3 or 4 days (Jan 31-Feb 3/4) that would’ve convinced top experts, some of whom initially thought a lab origin was more likely, that engineering even for basic science could be ruled out.
At this point, the pangolin virus with the similar spike RBD still had not been announced publicly although scientists may have privately communicated with each other. nature.com/articles/d4158…
Chinese researchers “identified the pangolin as the potential source of nCoV-2019… The sequences are 99% similar, the researchers reported at press conference on 7 February.”
Their claim that the pangolin virus was a 99% sequence match to SARS2 turned out to be untrue.
Their claim that the pangolin virus was a 99% sequence match to SARS2 turned out to be untrue.
It’s very important imo that scientists who publicly dismissed lab origins or failed to communicate the nuance of a plausible unintentional lab escape should walk the public through a detailed timeline (with dates) of how their minds were changed by emerging evidence.
For example, on which day might the Proximal Origin (PO) team have seen this Jan 30, 2020 analysis posted on a site run by one of the PO authors, or perhaps performed it independently? H/t @babarlelephant
virological.org/t/ncov-2019-sp…
virological.org/t/ncov-2019-sp…
This is why being able to see the email reflections by international top experts on their Feb 1, 2020 #OriginsOfCovid meeting is so important.
I would like to see what the scientific reasoning was and what each person said and learnt from the meeting with peers.
I would like to see what the scientific reasoning was and what each person said and learnt from the meeting with peers.
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