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Alina Chan Profile picture
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30 Jul, 7 tweets, 2 min read
NIH explained to Senator Grassley how NIH-funded SARS/MERS-like chimeric CoV work at WIV had not been determined to meet USG criteria for GOFROC covered by federal funding pause or P3CO Framework.

But more interesting than the ⚔️ on GOF definitions is…
grassley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/…
“during the course of the grant, the grantee proposed to place a small portion of the newly identified bat coronaviruses into a larger portion of MERS-CoV to understand the potential origins of MERS-CoV in bats.. conducted at WIV”

Can this proposal pls be shared with the public?
Another question: Did NIH-funded WIV work turn out to be “instrumental to the unprecedented rapid development of vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics to address the COVID-19 pandemic”?

Important for this to be substantiated with data since similar work continues to be funded.
Research on the human SARS and MERS viruses certainly primed vaccine and therapeutics developers to respond to the covid-19 pandemic.

However, GOF or not, was the work on related bat coronaviruses essential to the development of vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics?
There is encouraging post-pandemic research based on bat SARSrCoVs that could one day lead to the production of a pan-coronavirus vaccine.

However, I think it’s important to acknowledge that these research payoffs didn’t make it in time for Covid-19.
Last point: Despite leaning towards natural spillover hypothesis, “NIH is in favor of a full investigation and we defer to the investigators to determine the information they deem necessary to conduct a full and independent assessment and develop their findings.” #OriginsOfCovid
To assist a full investigation and boost confidence in the “emerging consensus from world-renowned experts” it would help if NIH release the non-redacted email exchanges relating to the Feb 1, 2020 #OriginsOfCovid meeting that these world-renowned experts and NIH participated in.

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More from @Ayjchan

Alina Chan Profile picture
31 Jul
Would be good to track the 2000+ individuals (all adults vaccinated) from this cruise who are disembarking in the Bahamas tomorrow and see how many test positive for Covid-19 over the next 2 weeks. usatoday.com/story/travel/c…
There are many things we don’t know *yet* about the delta variants and vaccines:

How much do our vaccines protect against infection, asymptomatic or symptomatic, by delta?

How much do infected vaxed individuals spread the virus compared to infected non-vaxed individuals?
We do know that several top vaccines continue to protect against severe covid-19. So it’s not particularly worrying when vaxed people get delta (although there are exceptions and some breakthrough cases suffer greatly). What’s worrying is the spread of delta to the unvaxed.
Read 7 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
30 Jul
Internal CDC document cites "unpublished data from outbreak investigations and outside studies showing that vaccinated individuals infected with delta may be able to transmit the virus as easily as those who are unvaccinated."
washingtonpost.com/health/2021/07…
"Even people who are vaccinated should wear masks indoors in communities with substantial viral spread or when in the presence of people who are particularly vulnerable to infection and illness, the CDC said."
"public trust in vaccines may be undermined when people experience or hear about breakthrough cases, especially after public health officials have described them as rare."
Read 8 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
29 Jul
A picture of SARS-CoV-2 variants in the USA.

Plotting the lineage percentages of new sequences each day over the past 6 months. Visualized using covidcg.org @CovidCg

Red = Alpha variant
Dark blue (outlined) = Delta variant
@CovidCg Under the blue wave of Delta which was first detected in the USA in Feb 2021, there is a green sliver indicating the newer AY.3 sublineage of Delta.

This means that almost all of the most recent USA sequences on the GISAID database are Delta.
@CovidCg The same type of plot for Japan visualized on covidcg.org @CovidCg

New lineage percentages by day over the past 6 months.

Red = Alpha
Dark blue = Delta
Light blue = lineage R.1 (no greek letter)
Read 16 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
26 Jul
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.)
An unscripted answer from Holmes as to why the genome release was delayed even after Genbank had finished processing it in early January 2020.
Read 12 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
25 Jul
Leaders have to come up with a new protocol for emerging diseases: how scientists communicate vital info to the WHO and the public (important!), how peer reviewed confidentiality should be waived in these crises, and how to keep these systems accountable. dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9…
What I’m worried about is that this pandemic will drive leaders and scientists in the opposite direction towards less transparency.

What if more scientists start using Protonmail, Signal, and burner phones for future communications regarding emergencies?
The recent FOIAs revealing highly confidential conversations (or redactions) are likely to cause more people to shift to secure, non-FOI’able channels.

If so, this may be the one of the last pandemics/outbreaks we can shed much light on via FOIA.
Read 5 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
24 Jul
An interview of Peter Daszak, EcoHealth Alliance from a year ago:

"Daszak says that around 16,000 bats have been sampled and around 100 new SARS-like viruses discovered."

May we please see the data concerning these 100 new SARS-like viruses discovered?
economist.com/science-and-te…
Very next sentence: "In particular, some bats found in China are now known to harbour coronaviruses that seem pre-adapted to infect people."

Did another top expert in the field use the word "pre-adapted"?
We know that not all of these novel SARSrCoVs (and their sequences) are in the public domain.

Even the most recently published RaTG15 was collected in 2015.
Read 5 tweets

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