Alina Chan Profile picture
Feb 8 5 tweets 2 min read
It troubles me that there are emails and documents located here in the USA which can tell us what SARS-like viruses and rare cleavage sites scientists in Wuhan had discovered.

Why are these not being subpoena'ed so that we can end speculation about #OriginOfCovid?
I keep seeing tweets about not being able to investigate the #OriginOfCovid unless the Chinese government lets us. If you think it through, there is so much info, documentation & communications scattered around the world. A lot of it here in the USA. We've known this since 2020.
The numerous scientists, many here in the US and some in other countries, who were part of the DEFUSE proposal just kept mum about their 2018 furin cleavage site insertion pipeline for nearly 2 years until some anonymous person leaked it.
If there are people out here in the US who are still sitting on key information that could shed light on the #OriginOfCovid - 2 years into the pandemic, millions of deaths in - can I ask what are you waiting for?
It looks way more incriminating when someone else leaks the documents/emails and shows that you were sitting on these for years with no intention of coming forward.

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More from @Ayjchan

Feb 7
I'm grateful for the growing number of scientists and science reporters who are advocating for a credible investigation of both natural and lab #OriginOfCovid hypotheses.

People in the future need to be able to look back and see that some scientists have integrity & courage.
Knowing that there are checks and balances in our research system (including its funding, publication, and media reporting), and people to actually enforce those checks and balances, builds the bedrock of public trust in science.
If the #OriginOfCovid is traced to research activities, it would make me most relieved if scientists played a prominent role in investigating and determining the origin - and not in covering it up or suppressing an investigation out of self-preservation or fear.
Read 6 tweets
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
Feb 5
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
Read 4 tweets
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
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
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

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