1 of 9: Thank you SO MUCH @profvrr, Kathy Spindler, and @alandove for your excellent discussion of my recent COVID origins Perspective in @ScienceMagazine
science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…
on TWiV (This Week in Virology)
science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…
on TWiV (This Week in Virology)
2: You hit on key points I wanted people to take home, especially that there really was a preponderance of early COVID cases linked to Huanan Market and this can't be dismissed as ascertainment bias (undue searching for cases linked to the market, while ignoring unlinked cases).
3: This, along with the fact that if the pandemic started there you should *expect* to see some cases unlinked to the market early on as people were infected then moved the virus into the nearby community, points squarely at the market as the overwhelmingly likely site of origin.
4: Also liked your highlighting how Dr. Zhang Jixian, at Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, had worked out on the *same* day she saw her first case (Dec 27) that this was a new virus, was human to human transmissible, and could be asymptomatic.
5:
Nearly a month before China admitted H2H transmission!
And your noting that the system set up in the wake of SARS to identify new viruses broke down completely because clinicians were not reporting unexplained pneumonia through the national reporting system.
Nearly a month before China admitted H2H transmission!
And your noting that the system set up in the wake of SARS to identify new viruses broke down completely because clinicians were not reporting unexplained pneumonia through the national reporting system.
6: It is *outrageous* that China CDC has attempted to credit the Pneumonia of Unknown Etiology mechanism with identifying the outbreak in Wuhan. It didn't. Zhang Jixian did.
Falsely crediting the PUE system in this way will prevent the changes needed to make it work next time.
Falsely crediting the PUE system in this way will prevent the changes needed to make it work next time.
7: Finally, thanks for the shout out about my timeline of key early events in Wuhan, which is buried in the supplementary materials, but which I will paste here in hopes that people might have a look. 
8: Along with the figure legend:
9: Finally, @profvrr, sick burn about me declining your earlier invitation to be on TWiV. What a primadonna I was - sorry!
Never again: I'd be delighted to be on TWiV in the future, if you'll have me.
Never again: I'd be delighted to be on TWiV in the future, if you'll have me.
Ai Fen and colleagues at Wuhan Central Hospital also played key role in identifying early cases, plus first identification of the news SARS-related virus on Dec 26, full genome Dec 27.
15 days before Zhang Yong-Zhen, @edwardcholmes and @arambaut broke the gag order and published
15 days before Zhang Yong-Zhen, @edwardcholmes and @arambaut broke the gag order and published
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