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Alina Chan

@Ayjchan

7 Nov

https://twitter.com/ayjchan/status/1456984320036507648

So Wuhan scientists had collected and tested thousands of high risk animal and human samples from the wildlife trade spanning 8 countries in the years leading up to the pandemic.

They never reported finding a single SARS2-like virus in the wildlife trade.

https://twitter.com/ayjchan/status/1456984320036507648

Remember that this was pre-pandemic so there shouldn’t have been strong reasons to conceal the discovery of novel SARSrCoVs in the wildlife animals or traders sampled.

There are 2 options:

1. Despite this search, they found absolutely zero SARS2-like viruses or any SARSrCoV with a novel cleavage site across the wildlife trade, meaning that the only animals reportedly found with SARS2-like viruses (no cleavage site) are bats and pangolins.

Read 10 tweets

Alina Chan

@Ayjchan

6 Nov

https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1456984320036507648

It is imperative that EcoHealth make public all detailed information relating to the thousands of high-risk animal and human samples shipped up into Wuhan from 8 different countries between 2016-2020.

Otherwise, its international partners from 7 countries should have these data.

https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1456984320036507648

Each of the partners in the 7 countries must have records of when Wuhan scientists visited for virus sampling and how many and what samples they sent up to Wuhan (even if they didn't test the samples for pathogens locally).

A point of reflection here.

Despite these wide-scale, international endeavors, the entirety of SARS-CoV-2-related viruses detected in the wildlife trade have, to this day, only been reported in pangolins.

Read 6 tweets

Alina Chan

@Ayjchan

6 Nov

Spending a Saturday morning going through the EcoHealth x NIH emails FOIA'ed by the White Coat Waste.

Interesting email from Peter Daszak in 2016:
scribd.com/document/53702…

Essentially, the local wildlife trade was dwindling in South China (back in 2016), forcing Wuhan scientists to travel to or seek novel pathogen samples from 7 neighboring countries.

In 2016, they proposed collecting about 2,300 of these high risk pathogen host animal samples in China and SE Asia.

May we see the full data and databases resulting from these studies for which testing was partially funded by the NIH or NIAID?

Read 10 tweets

Alina Chan

@Ayjchan

6 Nov

https://twitter.com/lexfridman/status/1456722457788702722

Some experts have been misinformed that it took years to find the intermediate host of SARS1. Actually only took 2 months once the virus was isolated to find several infected animals at a market.

It has been ~2 years since SARS2 was detected - no intermediate host to be seen.

https://twitter.com/lexfridman/status/1456722457788702722

It is not normal that in 2019, with all of our greatly advanced tech, in a city housing the world's greatest expertise for tracking SARSrCoV outbreaks, it has been so challenging to find the proximal origin or intermediate host of SARS-CoV-2.

And we know that when SARS-CoV-2 emerged in Wuhan, the local institute of virology had been actively working with at least 9 of the closest virus relatives to SARS-CoV-2 - all collected from a South China mine where 6 miners had sickened with a mysterious pneumonia, half died.

Read 10 tweets

Alina Chan

@Ayjchan

5 Nov

https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1359313577329504258

A thread from Feb this year. We cannot afford to set a dangerous precedent showing that there is no way to hold accountable labs engaged in risky research that can accidentally lead to massive loss of life or bad actors intentionally creating bioweapons.

https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1359313577329504258

https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1336498866741518336

Yes, we need to immediately overhaul existing frameworks and oversight concerning risky pathogen research.

But we also need to show that the world has the will and capabilities to investigate mysterious pandemics.

Another of my threads from Dec 2020:

https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1336498866741518336

"Even some scientists who favor the natural origins theory argue for a fuller investigation because they believe it would set a precedent... Forgoing the inquiry would send a dangerous signal: Accountability isn’t guaranteed."
latimes.com/world-nation/s…

Read 5 tweets

Alina Chan

@Ayjchan

5 Nov

If the problem with some lab leak proponents is that they’re “just asking questions”, then the problem with some natural spillover proponents is that they “don’t ask questions”.

From day 1, some believed SARS2 must’ve come from a market, everything else could not be questioned.

The amount of misinfo coming from both sides has been comparable, but in-field experts should be held to a higher standard because their word is taken at face value by journalists and the public.

Yet we have seen zero accountability for the misinformation spread by some experts.

Have any of the experts who cast the lab origin hypothesis as a conspiracy theory taken any responsibility for their anti-scientific statements?

Have any of the journalists misled by them gone back to these experts and said wtf?