Thread by @mattwridley

Haiku thread follows.

If a pandemic caused by a new bat-derived sars-like virus breaks out in a city and

The city has no similar viruses in its local bats and

Has no sars-like antibodies in its people and

Has no infected animals in its markets and...

1/10

Sars like viruses have leaked at least four times from laboratories and

The city has a laboratory studying bat-borne sars-like viruses and

That laboratory has published more papers on sars-like viruses than any other and...

2/10

Has the world’s largest collection of bat-borne coronaviruses and

Took its database offline and

This included a sars-like coronavirus very closely related to the pandemic virus and

That virus was collected on one of at least 7 visits to a mine 1885km away by road and...

3/10

That mine is now off limits to outsiders and heavily guarded and

3 men died after becoming infected at that site from a suspected sars-like infection and

The laboratory has omitted the connection to that outbreak in publications and...

4/10

It has changed the name of a bat borne virus it collected there and

Has misled the world about when it sequenced the genome of that virus and

Did not publish details of eight other viruses from the same site for 11 months and...

5/10

Has done experiments to make chimeric sars-like viruses and

Those experiments leave no trace of genetic engineering and

It has tested those chimeric viruses in human airway epithelial cells and

Has tested those chimeric viruses in humanised mice and...

6/10

It has done these experiments at lower biosafety levels (BSL-2 and BSL-3) and

Has been criticised for poor laboratory safety standards and

Has patented devices for keeping bats in the lab and

Has patented devices for treating bat-bite injuries and...

7/10

Has previously worked on the insertion of furin cleavage sites into MERS-like coronaviruses and

No other sars-like virus has been found with a S1/S2 furin cleavage site and

The lab has recently applied for grants to insert furin cleavage sites into sars-like viruses and

8/10

The government of that country has strongly resisted a full investigation and

Has championed an implausible explanation based on imported frozen food and

Has frustrated the attempts of outsiders to seek relevant information...

9/10

Then

It is plausible that pandemic may have begun with a lab leak or research-related accident.

10/10

Viral: The Search for the #OriginOfCovid arrives three weeks from today.

Pre-order it now: amzn.to/3hfGmyn

Or stay updated by liking its Facebook page: facebook.com/authormattridl…