Share this page!

Alina Chan Profile picture
Twitter logo
Feb 8 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
What a difference a year can make.

March 2021:
"many virologists also remain unconvinced by the idea that SARS-CoV-2 was engineered"
buzzfeednews.com/article/petera…
May 2021:
"More investigation is still needed to determine the origin of the pandemic. Theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable. Knowing how COVID-19 emerged is critical..."
science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…
June 2021:
"You can't distinguish between the two origins from just looking at the sequence. So, naturally, you want to know were there people in the virology laboratory in Wuhan who were manipulating viral genetic sequences?"
caltech.edu/about/news/the…
Aug 2021, US intelligence:
"After examining all available intelligence reporting and other information... All agencies assess that two hypotheses are plausible: natural exposure to an infected animal and a laboratory-associated incident."
dni.gov/index.php/news…
September 2021 on the Wuhan research:
“Whether that particular study did or didn’t [lead to the pandemic], it certainly could have,” said Nunberg, of Montana Biotechnology Center... “You can’t call back the virus once you release it into the environment.”
theintercept.com/2021/09/23/cor…
“The work describes generating full-length bat SARS-related coronaviruses that are thought to pose a risk of human spillover. And that’s the type of work that people could plausibly postulate could have led to a lab-associated origin of SARS-CoV-2” - Jesse Bloom

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Alina Chan

Alina Chan Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @Ayjchan

Alina Chan Profile picture
Feb 9
2 early takeaways from this saga:

1. Chinese scientists asked @NIH NCBI database to delete deposited data containing sequences of early versions of SARS-CoV-2 virus.

2. US-based @biorxivpreprint blocked European scientists from posting their analysis of this data as a preprint.
Never thought I'd ask this, but... @biorxivpreprint @cshperspectives

What is bioRxiv's gatekeeping policy when it comes to original analyses? And would you consider a more transparent approach to this gatekeeping by publishing the name of the reviewer and reason for rejection?
@biorxivpreprint @cshperspectives Although bioRxiv is not a peer review service, it still confers a certain level of credibility to the preprints it has screened.

Has the team at bioRxiv considered that now there may be conflicts of interest among its screeners that should be carefully managed?
Read 5 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Feb 8
An oldie but a goodie.
"Particularly sensitive is the mine shaft where the closest relative of the COVID-19 virus.. was discovered after an outbreak in 2012.. Wuhan Institute of Virology and the China CDC both studied bat coronaviruses from this shaft."
apnews.com/article/united…
I don't buy that elite scientists in China - Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese CDC director's lab, Beijing Institute of Pathogen Biology - scoured the Mojiang mine repeatedly over years for bat coronaviruses without thinking the miners were likely infected by a 🦇coronavirus.
These top scientists literally sampled the shit out of thousands of bats, rodents and other animals in that mine for years - testing every sample for viruses that might potentially infect humans.

And some people think they did not suspect the miners had been felled by a virus?
Read 13 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Feb 8
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.
Read 5 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
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
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
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

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Like this author's thread?

Get emails when @Ayjchan has new unrolls!

Check out other threads from @Ayjchan!

Read all threads by @Ayjchan

:(