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Alina Chan Profile picture
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13 Aug, 6 tweets, 3 min read
Journalists obstructed from reaching the mine where the closest genomic match to SARS2 was found; 6 miners sickened with mysterious pneumonia, half died, suspected viral infection, several top labs went virus hunting since 2012. WIV found 9 SARSrCoVs during trips up to 2015.
Mountain-biking @WSJ reporter manages to make it to the mouth of the virus-infested mine, snaps a photo, but is detained by police and forced to delete it.
Even a local team of scientists who tried to collect samples from the mine had their samples confiscated.
One problem is, the scientists asserting that WIV has collected only so few viruses haven’t been paying attention to their publications.

They were amassing a growing number of virus samples each year but had a dramatic drop off in 2016. H/t @franciscodeasis
I find it less plausible that such a well funded lab in its prime would suddenly not have any new viruses sampled or isolated between 2016 and 2019.
But this claim that WIV only had 3 SARSrCoV virus isolates seemed to make sense to at least one of the WHO recruited international experts on their #OriginsOfCovid joint study

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More from @Ayjchan

Alina Chan Profile picture
13 Aug
“email chain shows editor Shan Lu telling two of the authors he would share a “secret” with them — that Taylor & Francis could become “very suspicious” when he pushed “a super fast review and accept (basically no review)”.” #OriginsOfCovid #PeerReview unherd.com/2021/08/how-ch…
We now have at least 2 virologists, who published anti-lab origin articles in top scientific journals, deleting their Twitter accounts after emails implicating them were FOI’ed by @USRightToKnow and @BuzzFeed

This does not inspire trust in science. It’s a loss for humanity.
I don’t know what other scientists think while observing this pattern of scientists having conflicting public and private opinions about the possibility of SARS2 having come from a lab, engineered or not.

For me, it’s discouraging. The scientific gatekeeping system is corrupt.
Read 7 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
13 Aug
This is a question for BSL2 scientists. When you have a small spill in the lab or splash some cell culture outside of the hood, maybe a small leak in the centrifuge, do you meticulously record this event in your lab notebook?
Another question for BSL2 scientists, do you report mild fever, cold or sore throat during flu season to your institute for record-keeping?
3/4 question for BSL2 researchers, does your lab or institute require and effectively enforce the recording of small spills among all of its BSL2 staff?
Read 7 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
12 Aug
Did the @WHO international experts get to talk to two obvious whistleblowers, Dr Ai Fen a doctor who treated some of the first known covid cases and the technician who first discovered it was a SARS related coronavirus, when they visited Wuhan?

If not, why?

#OriginsOfCovid
This early study said the first patient developed symptoms Dec 1, no link to the seafood market.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
This @washingtonpost report said the first patient sickened Dec 8, an accountant who lived in Wuchang - the Wuhan district where WIV is located, across the river from the seafood market.

washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pac…
Read 8 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
12 Aug
When SARS2 was detected in Wuhan in 2019, the WIV had been working on the 9 closest related viruses at the time, for several years, collected from a Yunnan mine where 6 people suffered a mysterious pneumonia and half died.

This info should’ve been released to the world on day 1.
Regardless of whether WIV had SARS2 in its possession prior to the outbreak, the whole point of the Predict or Global Virome Project was to immediately inform the world about potentially concerning emerging pathogens.

Yet, their pathogen database disappeared in Sep 2019.
The SARS2 genome they had would’ve shown this virus had a sufficiently different spike from the bat SARSrCoVs in the deadly mine.

Mainly the spike had a unique FCS insertion that other scientists immediately noted as troubling.

Dec 2019 patient data pointed to H2H transmission.
Read 8 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
11 Aug
I don’t want any more experts accidentally spreading the misinformation that WIV was built next to a hotbed of coronaviruses.

Wuhan scientists had to make long trips to South China each year to find SARS-like viruses and bring 1000s of animal and human samples back up to Wuhan.
More misinformation about #OriginsOfCovid being debunked here
How far is Wuhan from the Yunnan mines that were teeming with SARS-like viruses?

About 1,800km by road.
Comparable to New York to Orlando FL, or Portland OR to San Diego.
Read 4 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
10 Aug
Am I getting this right that the question is no longer:

Is Covid-19 from a market or a lab?

But even China is asking:

Is Covid-19 from a Chinese or American lab?

The natural spillover hypothesis is definitely off the table now?

globaltimes.cn/page/202108/12…
This Chinese state media article has so many good points:

1. Labs should be investigated by the WHO #OriginsOfCovid

2. Even top labs have (frequent) accidents and may not report it to the authorities

3. Biosafety measures taken in response to lab incidents are not bulletproof
4. A leak can result in 100s of people infected over a period of time when the virus is quietly evolving better human-to-human/animal transmission

5. Some countries have an opaque biosafety/biosecurity system

6. The government doesn’t always know what is happening in its labs
Read 6 tweets

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