Thread by @JamieMetzl

Critically important new PNAS opinion piece by @JeffDSachs & Neil Harrison calls “on US government scientific agencies, most notably the @NIH, to support a full, independent, and transparent investigation of the origins of #SARSCoV2.” 1/13 pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…

Although no new evidence presented, Sachs and Harrison state what should now be obvious to all: 1) we still don’t know #COVID19 origin, 2) we must if we are to build a safer future, 3) China blocking & 4) we must do our best to investigate regardless. 2/13

While it’s true that “much could be learned by investigating US-supported & US-based work that was underway in collaboration with Wuhan-based institutions,” we can’t lose sight of China’s criminal coverup. I've been saying this for a very long time. 3/13 wsj.com/articles/how-t…

Here at home, we must demand more transparency from NIH. FOIA’d emails (per Sachs/Harrison and many others) “suggest that the NIH leadership took an early and active role in promoting the 'zoonotic hypothesis' and the rejection of the laboratory-associated hypothesis.” 4/13

The fact that a luminary like Sachs, who chairs @TheLancet #COVID19 commission, is writing this is a HUGE deal. It's a direct refutation of the "dispositive evidence" claims by the "market origins" preprint authors, wrongly amplified by the @nytimes. 5/13 nytimes.com/interactive/20…

Sachs argues the investigation “should take place w/in a tightly focused science-based bipartisan Congressional inquiry with full investigative powers, which would be able to ask important questions—but avoid misguided witch-hunts governed more by politics than by science.” 6/13

I've been making the case for a bipartisan US national commission for two years. It's just nuts we don't yet have one in place. 7/13 thehill.com/opinion/white-…

But the real question for all of us is why we need to repeat these calls to arms over and over while nothing much happens? How can it possibly be that after 2.5 years and 15 million dead there is no full investigation? 8/13

@WHO SAGO is an important step in the right direction but seems trapped between China's unwillingness to cooperate and its inability to fully condemn China for this coverup. 9/13

Our so-called "Paris group" of experts has released five open letters making the essential points. You can find links to them here. 10/13 jamiemetzl.com/origins-of-sar…

It was a big deal when @jbloom_lab @DavidRelman @Ayjchan @Baric_Lab & others released their Science letter, but then... crickets. Baric is the world's expert on coronaviruses who knows more than anyone what might have been happening at WIV. 11/13 science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…

So what is it going to take to get a full investigation of pandemic origins? Are we just waiting around for the next pandemic that doesn't kill (unnecessarily) 15 million and counting but 50 million, a hundred million, a billion? 12/13

So many shots have been fired across the bow that the water is boiling around us, yet our oblivious ship sails on toward even greater danger. Unless we take urgent action now, future generations will blame us, fairly, for our inaction. 13/13