Natural origin proponents and agnostic/lab leak proponents keep talking past each other because there are some fundamental differences in how we interpret the state of knowledge and novel findings relating to #OriginsOfCovid
Close relatives to SARS2 have been found in bats.

Natural origin proponents: we will find the intermediate host of SARS2 soon.

Agnostic/lab origin proponents: we still don’t know how the virus got from bats to humans.
On precedents.

Natural origin proponents: this new pandemic is most likely history repeating itself.

Agnostic/lab origin proponents: viruses, including coronavirus and the first SARS virus, have leaked from labs too.
SARS2 genome could be natural or could have been modified.

Natural origin proponents: no one would’ve designed a virus this way.

Agnostic/lab origin proponents: we don't know because we have no access to virus databases and the literature does not reflect the most recent work.
Funding of more virus hunting.

Natural origin proponents: we need more of this to develop pan-virus therapies and vaccines.

Agnostic/lab origin proponents: we need to stop this until we figure out a safer, more transparent approach otherwise we risk a future lab-based outbreak.
A leaked 2018 EcoHealth x WIV x UNC proposal, later authenticated, reveals a research roadmap to insert cleavage sites into novel SARS-like viruses.

Natural origin proponents: it was just a plan.

Agnostic/lab origin proponents: what are the odds?
Generally, those agnostic/pro-lab leak are more open to the (likely) possibility that there is important information withheld/not known to the public yet.

This suggests we should exercise caution before making overly confident assertions and going 1000% on more virus hunting.

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More from @Ayjchan

9 Oct
"The difference between the early days of HIV science and today is the vertiginous firepower virologists now have due to phenomenal advances.. Genomes can be synthesized.. Virologists like me have been doing this since the 1980s with ever increasing ease."
dailymail.co.uk/debate/article…
"EcoHealth proposed surgically precise modifications that would push these viral chimeras even further down the road towards what must bluntly be called a coronavirus admirably suited to infecting humans.

And we can all agree that SARS-CoV-2 is a macabre success story."
"What we do not know – and badly need to know – is whether this proposal was submitted elsewhere, financed and performed.

Bear in mind the proposal was written in 2018, 18 months before the outbreak in Wuhan."
Read 5 tweets
9 Oct
One realization I had during the pandemic is that scientists tend to focus hard on innovating and pushing out new vaccines and therapeutics, without paying attention to why people around them do not trust these vaccines and therapeutics.
Even as a scientist, I grew increasingly ticked off by the lack of transparency and honesty from some of the scientists at the top of their fields.

I had to keep reminding myself that these are just a few scientists.

How much more distrust would I feel as a non-scientist?
The Feb 1 phone call + highly redacted emails


The FOIA'ed EcoHealth x WIV reports
theintercept.com/2021/09/09/cov…

The leaked Defuse EcoHealth x WIV proposal
theintercept.com/2021/09/23/cor…

These seriously bother me.
Read 6 tweets
7 Oct
There are people who understand the difference between a conspiracy and a cover-up.

And there are people who are grasping at straws.
There's a big difference between calling something a conspiracy vs a cover-up.

Cover-ups happen regularly and often follow accidental mistakes.

Conspiracies have a different, nefarious meaning to many people. And a conspiracy theory has become synonymous with a crackpot theory.
This difference is so basic but some people need it to be explained to them again and again.
Read 5 tweets
6 Oct
Opinion @washingtonpost by Kevin Esvelt @kesvelt @MIT inventor of #GeneDrive

"For 20 years, taxpayer-funded research programs have sought to identify or create pandemic-causing viruses, all with surprisingly little transparency."

h/t @TheSeeker268

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
@washingtonpost @kesvelt @MIT @TheSeeker268 "To discover many dangerous viruses, or learn to enhance weaker ones, is to share the blueprints for an arsenal of plagues. Good people advocate for such research.. [but] misuse could be worse than if any of those pathogens spilled over naturally."
@washingtonpost @kesvelt @MIT @TheSeeker268 "Instead, health and security agencies should work together, ideally with considerably more than the $65 billion requested by the White House, to build adequate defenses against future pandemics."
Read 5 tweets
6 Oct
It's not right that information directly relevant to the #OriginsOfCovid - much of it from sources outside of China - are only being revealed close to 2 years post-outbreak.
These documents only made public in September 2021 make any scientific reviews (some would say critical reviews) or science journalism pieces prior to last month out-of-date and uninformed.

theintercept.com/2021/09/06/new…

theintercept.com/2021/09/23/cor…
If anyone is writing a new #OriginsOfCovid journalistic piece or a critical review/op-ed for publication at a scientific journal, you must include the new findings from the #Defuse DARPA proposal leaked by Drastic and the NIH EcoHealth progress reports FOIA'ed by @theintercept
Read 4 tweets
6 Oct
Some don’t want to investigate a lab leak because they worry the outcome of confirming a lab origin of covid might be cataclysmic.

In other words, they might be thinking it is better to risk lab-based pandemics in the future than to confront the origin of the current pandemic.
As I tweeted that, I got tagged by @joshrogin in news that virus hunting is getting a new infusion of 💰
I don’t think that scientific decisions are currently being guided by the strong possibility that this type of virus hunting and manipulation research might have led to the covid-19 pandemic.
Read 6 tweets

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