Thread by @Ayjchan

From @sciencecohen @ScienceMagazine on @WHO next steps #originsofcovid
“Koopmans.. would welcome broadening the existing group’s expertise.. to conduct lab audits and to study the blood of more humans who.. may have been exposed.. before the outbreak”
sciencemag.org/news/2021/07/w…

Gerard Keusch, who signed both infamous Lancet letters and partnered with Peter Daszak to apply for a grant, said of the new SAGO: “allowing individuals and governments to nominate themselves.. will result in a partisan, selective process and not lead to the best composition.”

I would like to ask Keusch if he witnessed the China-WHO joint study phase I team member selection process and whether he considers it non-partisan and of the “best composition”.

And in particular whether he believes members with reasonably perceived conflicts of interests were able to act in an entirely “private capacity” while in the study group:

https://twitter.com/michaelzlin/status/1407208126974087169

Remember this absurdity where one of the international experts, Peter Daszak vouched for the WIV lab, his long time collaborator, and didn’t ask to see their extensive pathogen database which he partially funded and is a part of?

https://twitter.com/jbloom_lab/status/1372383460094930946

I think an open nomination process is going to be just fine. Things can only improve from where we currently stand.

Just think about how much valuable time in Phase I of their joint study was devoted to investigating whether the virus might’ve originated from frozen foods #PopsicleOrigins

https://twitter.com/ayjchan/status/1359536221370867715

https://twitter.com/ayjchan/status/1360397010336182276

I also think the @WHO team and SAGO could initially focus the investigation on venues that do not require China’s cooperation. A gem of a study was only revealed this June, 1.5 years post-outbreak. Contradicting the China-WHO report that no live wild mammals were sold in Wuhan.

https://twitter.com/marionkoopmans/status/1404146637514158080

There could be more of these studies just languishing behind the curtain of peer review. Let’s start with the journals outside of China first to build a comprehensive set of knowledge about info and data concerning early cases, SARSrCoVs, and subjects related to #OriginsOfCovid

On the market, even the Chinese CDC director realized in May 2020 it was just a later cluster of cases.

“At first, we assumed the seafood market might have the virus, but now the market is more like a victim. The novel coronavirus had existed long before”
newsweek.com/wuhan-seafood-…

The China-WHO team understood as much. Regarding the Dec 2019 early cases, including those from the market, “those data became less important to team members.. because they realized that the pandemic predated those cases.”

Possibly as early as Sep 2019.
wsj.com/articles/covid…

Finding viral RNA on surfaces where a superspreader event occurred is 100% expected and does not necessarily point to natural spillover.

Take for example the first cruises to be hit with Covid-19. They weren’t shipping bats, pangolins, or raccoon dogs.

cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/6…

“SARS-CoV-2 RNA was identified on a variety of surfaces in cabins of both symptomatic and asymptomatic infected passengers up to 17 days after cabins were vacated on the Diamond Princess but before disinfection procedures had been conducted.”

But now we are being treated to a multi-market hypothesis - proposed by top virologists - that the SARS2 virus not only jumped from an animal to a human being once, but multiple times at multiple locations in Wuhan.

Evidence?

In my view, the multi-market hypothesis is more speculative and less plausible, relying on more unsubstantiated assumptions and with less circumstantial evidence, than the genetically engineered #OriginsOfCovid hypothesis.

Please remember that the market that the first case was associated with was not anything like a live animal market.

https://twitter.com/ayjchan/status/1412235381005864963

Possibly on the level of the “SARS2 came from space” hypothesis, which got past peer review.

People, this is a peer reviewed scientific article published in Advances in Genetics.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

IMO lab escape or genetic engineering hypotheses are more plausible than multi-market.

“You can't distinguish between the two origins from just looking at the sequence.. you want to know were there people.. who were manipulating viral genetic sequences?”

caltech.edu/about/news/the…

Wrapping up, we need parallel investigations.

We should expect best efforts from the WHO to return to transparent and timely science-focused work on #OriginsOfCovid but we can’t rely on just the WHO to investigate.