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Alina Chan Profile picture
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Feb 5 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Will specific steps for investigating both natural and lab #OriginOfCovid scenarios be clearly laid out?
I'm concerned about the SAGO process of figuring out how to track the #OriginOfCovid because apparently one of the experts in the original China-WHO team didn't know that viruses are cultured at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Which might explain why he could not think of a way to investigate a lab #OriginOfCovid
If the SAGO report only focuses on future studies of a natural origin and does not specify steps to investigate a lab #OriginOfCovid, then what is the point of the report?

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More from @Ayjchan

Alina Chan Profile picture
Feb 6
I think it's in poor form for @ScienceAdvances to have published this latest piece by EcoHealth/Daszak et al. without asking them to elaborate on how exactly they will work on improving the safety + transparency of virus discovery work.
h/t @TheSeeker268
science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…
@ScienceAdvances @TheSeeker268 "... for viral discovery, we chose to use the proposed budget of the Global Virome Project, a decade-long project that seeks to identify 70% of the unknown potentially zoonotic viruses in wildlife globally. It has an estimated budget of $120 million to $340 million per year."
@ScienceAdvances @TheSeeker268 I'd really like to know if any of the peer reviewers challenged this claim in the paper:

"Humanity needs a global viral discovery project if we are to prevent future pandemics."

How did all the virus discovery work in the past decade help to prevent pandemics?
Read 15 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Feb 5
One's political leanings should not determine whether you want to squash the lab leak hypothesis or prove that it is true.

It's a myth that if you're a democrat or pro-science, you should want to debunk a lab #OriginOfCovid
It's likely because of my own network, but most of the people who have expressed concerns to me about a lab #OriginOfCovid and want it to be properly investigated are scientists (pro-science) and democrats/liberals.
Reporters & people describing the #OriginOfCovid issue (~6 million deaths & counting) as a political game where each side is betting on one origin should be ashamed of themselves.

The inquiry into #OriginOfCovid should be motivated by facts not one's wishes or tribalism.
Read 5 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Feb 4
Telegraph reports Jeremy Farrar, Wellcome Trust director, said the lab leak theory ruined international co-operation and shut the door on identifying animal origins..

Because when you're accused of a lab leak, you hide evidence of a natural #OriginOfCovid
telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/0…
Farrar added: “If we now focus only on the lab side of this and we ignore the natural side, then we will miss the emergence of new pathogens which could be so disruptive to humanity.”

Not sure if Farrar was lucid in the past 2 years but the lab side was the side ignored.
Look at these monies invested into new centers for research in emerging infectious diseases!

Is there something equivalent for centers for research in preventing lab-based outbreaks?
niaid.nih.gov/news-events/ni…
Read 14 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Feb 3
2 years post-pandemic I think we can largely agree on the following regarding #OriginOfCovid:

1. No direct evidence for or against any particular origin hypothesis has been found.

2. Likely or not, lab origin is plausible & should be investigated, not ruled out prematurely.
And hopefully also:

3. Regardless of whether #OriginOfCovid was natural or lab-related, we need to immediately develop and enforce new regulation, with measurable and publicly reported outcomes, to make risky virus research way more transparent and safer.
Scientists arguing over whether it's a 5% or 50% chance that Covid-19 came from a lab, instead of calling for an investigation + new regulation, are missing the point that the scientific community should already be acting to reduce that % chance of a lab-based pandemic down to 0.
Read 6 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Feb 2
Scientists (and journalists), if you're afraid the lab #OriginOfCovid hypothesis will inflame racism, just say so. And explain why a lab accident has nothing to do with race.

Don't say that "science" says a lab #OriginOfCovid is a conspiracy theory. This politicizes science.
The moment our public figures and pundits (and even celebrities) start debating when it is acceptable to politicize science and, more importantly, who can politicize science, public trust in science is gone.
Hearing that some scientists and journalists might've cast the lab #OriginOfCovid hypothesis as a conspiracy theory to fight racism, and not because of actual science, makes me mad. As a scientist, as an asian person, and as a human being.
Read 4 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Feb 2
For a criticism of the substance of Proximal Origin, please see my medium post on their 2021 critical review, which is a more updated comprehensive version of their argument for a natural #OriginOfCovid:
ayjchan.medium.com/a-response-to-…

For a criticism of the ethics of Proximal Origin...
I've laid out ad nauseam the problems with Proximal Origin - not only their scientific content - but especially the fact that they obscured key contributors to the paper and thereby their conflicts of interests on this topic.

We know now that at least one of the leaders/advisors of the paper had hoped Proximal Origin would put down the 'destructive conspiracy' that was an accidental lab escape #OriginOfCovid
Read 8 tweets

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