Tweet

https://twitter.com/axios/status/1446189654106062852

More from @mattwridley

Matt Ridley

@mattwridley

12 Sep

@C_Small_

Two years ago today, on 12 September 2019,

as @C_Small_ discovered,

the Wuhan Institute of Virology took its bat and rodent pathogen database,

with 22,000 specimens and sequences,

offline in the early hours of the morning.

Why? ...

...The explanation that Shi Zhengli gave, that there had been hacking attempts, makes no sense.

Why would there be before the pandemic?

And sharing the data with a secure source overseas to protect against it being altered would render hacking futile...

...The fact sheet describing the database was not taken down but it was edited, on or before 30 December, to change the key words, and alter some terms from "wildlife" to "bat and rodent".

Why?...

Read 9 tweets

Matt Ridley

@mattwridley

28 Aug

Intelligence report:

1. Not a bioweapon
2. Chinese officials had no foreknowledge.
3. China 'continues to hinder the global investigation, resist sharing information and blame other countries'.
4. Low confidence that probably not genetic engineering

dni.gov/files/ODNI/doc…

5. Reports only one 'moderate confidence' assessment: one agency thinks it was a lab leak. FBI?
6. Four 'elements' have 'low confidence' that it was a natural exposure.
7. Three 'elements' unable to decide.
8. Emphasises the need for more information on the early cases.

This declassified assessment therefore solves nothing, adds little but reinforces the need to take both natural-origin and lab-leak theories seriously, to investigate them properly and to act as if both could happen again.

Read 4 tweets

Matt Ridley

@mattwridley

29 Jun

A thread on the misuse of the word "virulent".

I'm seeing articles saying that the delta variant is more virulent.

eg: "citing the spread of the more virulent Delta coronavirus variant in the United Kingdom"

nytimes.com/2021/06/28/wor…

Earlier in the year the same was said about the alpha (Kent) variant, that it was more "virulent".

That was untrue.

Virulent means "harmful", not "infectious".

“The suggestion that the Indian variant is more pathogenic needs to be taken with a big dose of salt. The same was initially suggested for the Kent variant but was later shown not to be true." Prof Ian Jones.

sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reactio…

Read 12 tweets

Matt Ridley

@mattwridley

2 Jun

1/ When analysing the actions of Shi Zhengli, Peter Daszak, Kristian Andersen and others who insisted on shutting down doubts about the lab leak origin of SARS-CoV-2 in Jan and Feb 2020, it's worth remembering that at that stage it looked likely to be a minor Chinese epidemic.

2/ Almost nobody expected that millions would die, the entire world would be convulsed and therefore that every detailed action by scientists would later come under intense scrutiny.

3/ Thus you might expect to get away with publishing the genome of a bat virus without mentioning its origin, or the fact that you are renaming it without saying so, or the fact that three people died of a mystery viral pneumonia caught at the site.

Read 7 tweets

Matt Ridley

@mattwridley

10 Apr

Thread: About 20 years ago I was invited to give the Prince Philip lecture at the Royal Society of Arts. I chose "reasons for environmental optimism" as my topic.

At the end, Prince Philip chaired a lively question session...
1/6

A man from Greenpeace put up his hand: "There's so much wrong with this lecture that I don't know where to start."

"Well, you've only got one minute, I'm afraid", said Prince Philip to a ripple of laughter.

The man then made his points for about 2 minutes, uninterrupted.
2/6

The next day a journalist from a big newspaper called me and said:

"We're running a story about how Prince Philip was very rude to a man from Greenpeace at a lecture at the RSA yesterday. Apparently, you were there. Can you confirm this?"
3/6

Read 6 tweets

Matt Ridley

@mattwridley

19 Dec 20

Thread on the new strain of SARS2 in the UK.

It's more than just a single mutation: 14 non-synonymous changes and several deletions.

virological.org/t/preliminary-…

1/5

It was first detected in Kent on 20 September.

"As of 15th December, there are 1623 genomes in the B.1.1.7 lineage. Of these 519 were sampled in Greater London, 555 in Kent, 545 in other regions of the UK including both Scotland and Wales, and 4 in other countries."

2/5

"The accrual of 14 lineage-specific amino acid replacements prior to its detection is, to date, unprecedented in the global virus genomic data for the COVID-19 pandemic...may have resulted, at least in part, from virus evolution with a chronically-infected individual."

3/5

Read 5 tweets

Share this page!

Matt Ridley

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

More from @mattwridley

Matt Ridley

Matt Ridley

Matt Ridley

Matt Ridley

Matt Ridley

Matt Ridley

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Like this author's thread?