Thread by @Ayjchan

The story of how the first SARS-CoV-2 genome sequence came to be released to the world continues to be unclear.

The new book by Jeremy Farrar tells a different side of the story.

“So much of science is about ego, for me as well. Who doesn’t want the first paper?” - Ed Holmes

According to the book, Holmes had seen signs that the Chinese government had obtained the full genome by Dec 27, 2019.

By Jan 4, 2020, Sinopharm had begun manufacturing a covid vaccine. (Human-to-human transmission only confirmed on Jan 20, 2020.)

https://twitter.com/ayjchan/status/1333556347259002880

An unscripted answer from Holmes as to why the genome release was delayed even after Genbank had finished processing it in early January 2020.

https://twitter.com/theseeker268/status/1380600964218974209

Why does it matter how the virus genome sequence was handled by scientists, scientific journals, and the government in the early days?

Because the genome is key to the development of diagnostics, vaccines, therapeutics, and understanding how much of a threat the pathogen may be.

What seems consistent across interviews and accounts:

1. By end of 1st week Jan 2020, multiple scientist groups had the SARS2 genome.

2. They were told not to share it with the public and they largely obeyed.

3. Pressure began to mount online for the genome to be released.

Farrar himself tweeted this on Jan 10, 2020 (9:50am EST, early afternoon UK, early hours of Jan 11 Australia):

https://twitter.com/JeremyFarrar/status/1215647022893670401

Within 12 hours, Holmes had posted the genome to Virological.

https://twitter.com/edwardcholmes/status/1215818828837339138

The story behind this tweet is detailed in Farrar's book. "Within minutes, the tweets attracted a private message on Twitter and a phone call from the other side of the world."

Strangely, the timeline in the book is also jumbled or could at least benefit from some clarification. Because Farrar writes that, prior to his Jan 10 tweet, he and Holmes had already been calling each other and planning on how to get Chinese scientists to disclose outbreak info.

Although Holmes was on the Nature paper with Zhang Yongzhen, he did not have access to the SARS-CoV-2 genome even after the manuscript had been submitted for peer review, and even after GenBank had processed it.

In Holmes' words, "I helped [Zhang] work out what it meant" without having seen the genome sequence.
smh.com.au/national/nsw/v…

Interview from Jan 2021:
“"It was weighing on my conscience." In Sydney, it was early on 11 January when Prof Holmes phoned his colleague in China and asked his permission to publish the sequence.”
bbc.com/news/science-e…