When a new SARSr-CoV with a new cleavage site insertion was causing an outbreak in Wuhan, how many of the scientists involved in the March 2018 DEFUSE proposal remembered their Wuhan colleagues had a roadmap for experimenting with new SARSr-CoVs with new cleavage site insertions?
This proposal to DARPA for $14.2 million, submitted in early 2018, was like the EcoHealth-WIV NIH proposal but on steroids.

It is looking increasingly authentic. Basically only lacking confirmation from DARPA or any one of the scientists in the document.
drasticresearch.files.wordpress.com/2021/09/main-d…
Some scientists might argue that the proposal was not successful - DARPA did not fund it. But it doesn't mean it wasn't already ongoing even at the time of proposal.

When you see this level of detail, there's a good chance some preliminary work has been done.
"We will also review deep sequence data for... functional proteolytic cleavage sites, and if so, introduce these changes into the appropriate... parental strain."

Sometimes scientists pitch magical approaches but most of the time there is a basis for their proposed strategy.
Since we do not have access to the deep sequencing data privately held by scientists, we cannot rule out or confirm whether the SARS2 FCS was definitely inserted in a lab.

But I wouldn't have rushed in Feb 2020 to condemn all theories of a non-natural origin.
A novel furin cleavage site might have been the extra ingredient for a natural virus to spillover from animals to humans and cause a pandemic.

But it could also have been the extra ingredient for a lab virus to jump into a researcher and be carried out of the lab unnoticed.
Imagine if the public had this info in Jan 2020.

International scientists, HQ in Wuhan, were collecting an incredibly vast diversity of SARSr-CoVs, making chimera, doing research at BSL2 and 3 in various boutique cells and humanized animal models, and inserting cleavage sites.
It might've made Tom Cotton's statements seem a little too cautious.
It might have changed how the entire world responded to the outbreak when it was still possible to contain.
We cannot go back in time, but we have to change how (international) scientific collaborations work.

This kind of information must be made public on day 1 of any new outbreak linked to a proximal research facility. We need rock solid whistleblower mechanisms.
A lot of us need to look at our "daily" decisions. How many times have you witnessed something bad happen and not done something to stop it from happening again?

In my experience, people can find a lot of excuses and ways to justify inaction. Mostly for self-preservation.
Often it is difficult to visualize the damage caused by inaction.

The number of lives disrupted or lost.

Many of us want to believe it's someone else's problem. But if everyone thinks that way, then no one does anything, and someone has to pay the price.
It is difficult to grasp the magnitude of millions of Covid-related deaths.

If there's anyone out there still sitting on documents or emails that could shed light on the origin of this virus, please send it at once to several of the most reputable and credible journalists.

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More from @Ayjchan

20 Sep
Possible ways for a virus with an ancestral origin in bats to have made its way to Wuhan.

It's good that scientists are finding more bat viruses related to SARS2 in South China/SE Asia, but it still doesn't identify the route by which SARS2 arrived in Wuhan.
Yes, it took about a decade to track the closest bat virus relatives to SARS1.

But only 2 months from isolating the virus to find the proximal animal source in Guangzhou in 2003, and only days in 2004.

Read more here:

Despite less advanced technologies, Chinese investigators rapidly tracked down early cases, likely animal sources, and a well-substantiated path for SARS1 to have been introduced into human beings via the trade of infected animals.
ayjchan.medium.com/a-response-to-…
Read 6 tweets
20 Sep
Wish the @cnn @drsanjaygupta special was longer. Must have so much more valuable footage from each of the interviewees. Q&A with @PeterDaszak and Dr Ralph Baric was 👌 Thank you for having me on the show ☄️producer and team!
Take home messages were:

1. No definitive evidence for natural or lab origin - jury still out

2. No actual investigation of lab origin yet

3. Extensive SARS-related virus work done at low biosafety levels

4. Large pathogen database MIA

5. But natural origins still possible
Ancestral bat origin most likely according to most experts and WHO.

Problem is we don’t know how a bat virus evolved and transformed into the SARS2 virus that was detected in Wuhan in December 2019.

Were research activities involved?
Read 5 tweets
19 Sep
It’s difficult to reconcile this interview of the former DNI with the recent declassified summary by the IC. If there is compelling evidence of a lab origin (which I had heard of back in August) then why did the IC agencies largely not reach even low confidence conclusions?
Reminder of how the IC implements ruled regarding just natural exposure vs lab origin:
Read 4 tweets
19 Sep
I think something’s very wrong if evidence of this nature exists and yet is not being shared with the public in a timely manner.

“Expect more bat-CoVs closer to SARS-CoV-2 & some likely w/ FCS or related in nature.” - @peterdaszak
“Op Eds & books planned & many more FoIAs on their way. But if we looks at the scientific data…” - @peterdaszak

Actually the scientific data in @theintercept FOIA has been very illuminating as to the GOF work being performed by EcoHealth and WIV.

“There have been dozens of FoIA’d docs, emails, reports, proposals (even ones that didn’t get funded!).” - @peterdaszak

The FOIA’ed emails show us how @TheLancet letter condemning non-natural origin hypotheses was orchestrated by Daszak.
Read 15 tweets
18 Sep
I didn’t realize it was comedy night.
“After inspection of the WIV biosafety laboratory, the WHO–China joint expert group also concluded that the introduction of SARS-CoV-2 through a laboratory incident was “extremely unlikely””
“as mentioned in the phase 1 joint report of the WHO-convened global study of origins of SARS-CoV-2, internal audit is a better alternative for all high-level biosafety laboratories worldwide to further exclude the “laboratory incident” hypothesis.”
Read 8 tweets
10 Sep
Thorough analysis by ⁦@theintercept⁩ ⁦@fastlerner⁩ ⁦@MaraHvistendahl⁩ ⁦@maiahibbett

“The real question is whether or not research has the potential to create or facilitate the selection of viruses that might infect humans.” theintercept.com/2021/09/09/cov…
“All but two of the scientists consulted agreed that, whatever title it is given, the newly public experiment raised serious concerns about the safety and oversight of federally funded research.”
Although the study describing 4991/RaTG13 for the first time and Latinne et al.’s paper were described as having been funded by the EHA grant, I didn’t see even a glimpse of the 9 Mojiang mine SARSrCoVs throughout the 900+ pages of text, phylogenetic trees and other figures.
Read 4 tweets

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