Dr. Angela Rasmussen Profile picture
Oct 29, 2022 24 tweets 8 min read Read on X
The recent Senate report on COVID origins is overtly political & contains many factual errors.

Some of the most glaring are extremely basic but may not seem so to a non-virologist. As I am a virologist, I can help. Let’s talk about biosafety at WIV.

nytimes.com/2022/10/27/sci…
The report contains a lengthy section regarding biosafety lapses at WIV. It claims to show evidence of multiple biocontainment breaches.

That sounds very bad! But how reliable is this evidence?
help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/… Image
First thing people need to know about working in biocontainment is that it’s not a “set it and forget it” mentality. You don’t build a containment lab and say, all done, let’s get to cooking up SARSr-CoV chimeras. Biosafety is a constant effort.
I work in one of the largest BSL3 labs in the world. I handle infectious SARS-CoV-2 on a near daily basis. Biosafety & biocontainment is at the front of my mind in everything I do. I have multiple colleagues whose full-time jobs are dedicated to the integrity of our lab.
There are multiple levels where biosafety protocols are implemented: all the way from individual (appropriate PPE & proper training) to the facility design & infrastructure (negative pressure, HEPA filters, waste disposal) to administrative (operational procedures, security).
Part of facility operations include regular maintenance. You make sure air handling is operating normally, the autoclaves are working, etc. Sometimes equipment breaks, so it’s replaced. Sometimes you realize there’s a better alternative, so you upgrade it.
The goal is to conduct essential research as safely as possible and constantly assessing whether that safety standard is met. If you can improve, you do—BEFORE a breach. Biosafety is about avoiding containment failures, not reacting to them.

That’s what I see in this report.
So when I see stuff like this, it seems pretty normal to me. Another key part of facility design is system redundancy. Here, WIV patented an auxiliary exhaust fan to maintain an air pressure gradient. You maintain negative air pressure in labs so pathogens can’t float out. Image
Here, WIV procured a vaporized hydrogen peroxide system to disinfect air coming from the lab. They even explain why they procured it: it’s less corrosive than an alternative. It’s an example of proactively upgrading critical equipment, not evidence of biosafety failure. Image
Same here. They were renovating the HVAC system to ensure lab air was contained in the lab. This is not evidence that any of the things they were explicitly trying to prevent (reversal of airflow, re-circulation of lab air) had ever occurred. Image
Another purchase of air decontamination equipment. Again this is a redundant system: rather than relying on filters alone, they bought a system to sterilize lab exhaust air prior to HEPA filtration. It shows there were multiple processes in place to prevent a containment breach. Image
Here WIV invented a sensor to detect HEPA filter malfunction on equipment used to transfer animals between labs. It improves function of containment measures, which again will be redundant (staff will also wear PPE, & the building itself has all the air handling stuff above). Image
And they invented a new disinfectant formulation. Liquid disinfectant is essential & we use it by the literal bucket. Many labs use Microchem, which is very effective but corrosive over time—it eventually wears out other equipment. Where can I get some less corrosive Microchem? Image
And…that’s it. No evidence of a breach or biosafety failure, but lots of evidence that they were operating a containment lab in a pretty standard way, with one exception: WIV was more innovative than many others and patented some of the bespoke systems they developed.
Which brings me to this. OMG in addition to upgrading and purchasing equipment for lab operations, they were also dealing with budget, procurement, and administrative issues, and as a result they were (gasp) MAKING POLICIES AND DOING BIOSAFETY TRAINING Image
This shows the high cost of maintenance. It’s true that BSL3/4 labs are expensive to operate (see lots of purchases above—infrastructure ain’t cheap). But here they identify this as a potential problem. Fixing problems before they cause a breach is essential to biosafety. Image
And one way to address issues of working with pathogens in substandard biocontainment is to pass laws preventing it and administratively regulate what labs can do certain research. Laws like this one. Image
And they were having a tough time getting equipment, which explains why they were so inventive. They also had meetings to remedy these shortfalls and to manage biosafety more effectively. ImageImage
And November 12, they reported that they solved a lot of these problems! Contrary to the Senate report, as well as a lot of linguistic speculation by the Chinese secrets “expert” profiled in that Vanity Fair/ProPublica piece about it, there is no mention of a biosafety failure. ImageImage
Now I’m not an expert in Chinese secrets or marginalia and I don’t speak Mandarin, but @zhihuachen has a great thread about how this report was actually just bragging to their bosses that aforementioned issues were solved, now let’s get back to safely kicking some virology ass.
I did like this part. I routinely work for 4+ hours in containment. Experiments take time. It’s not “an extreme test of will & physical endurance.” It’s a normal afternoon at work.

Burr may want to consider hardier staff, if they imagine a few hours of pipetting are so taxing. Image
And then WIV also had some biosafety training. Working in containment is “complex and grave” in that you need to be serious about biosafety & ready to respond to failures. That means you need to be properly trained. Training is ongoing & is part of how you prevent breaches. Image
And that’s it! No evidence of a biocontainment breach or a biosafety failure, other than lab leak fan fiction invented by people with no clue about how biosafety actually works reading documents that reflect the daily considerations & challenges of operating a containment lab.
Let’s hope that the bipartisan investigation which Sen. @PattyMurray said is ongoing consults experts who actually understand how operational biosafety works rather than a bunch of political science majors & Chinese secret translators.

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More from @angie_rasmussen

Sep 18
I’m pessimistic about the Pandemic Accord. Here’s a little story about why. In March 2023, I was invited to a Canadian Pandemic Accord stakeholder meeting in Ottawa.

I had just co-authored a report on environmental data that showed genetic proof of wildlife at Huanan Market.
There were round table exercises in which we were asked to address the components of the Pandemic Accord zero draft that we felt were most important.

The report we had just released raised so many relevant issues to pandemic response:
This report was years in the making because of issues a Pandemic Accord could fix. Key data wasn’t shared for years. Evidence of animals was obscured. Investigations were inadequate, not disclosed, or not done at all. There was hostility instead of international collaboration.
Read 31 tweets
Sep 7
There are critical outstanding questions about the MO bird flu case that need to be addressed now (and why reporting delays are unacceptable). They concern its pandemic potential.

Where did this virus come from?
How was the infection acquired?
Is human transmission occurring?
Where did the virus come from?

Viruses don’t materialize out of thin air. They only come from infected hosts, so we need to think about how the patient could be exposed to said hosts. No contact with animals reported, but indirect contact or exposure could still occur.
This is also is why we need sequence data immediately.

Is this high or low path avian influenza?
Is this a reassortant? (Reassortment allows flu to take rapid evolutionary leaps ahead & cross species barriers)
Has the virus acquired mutations associated with human adaptation?
Read 15 tweets
Sep 7
This is being presented like it’s a triumph for flu surveillance, but I don’t think I would brag that the CDC and Missouri DHSS have known it was H5Nx for at least a week, probably longer, and waited to disclose this publicly until a Friday night.

cdc.gov/media/releases…
The patient was hospitalized on August 22nd and they only disclosed that it’s H5 with no known animal contact (meaning it could be human transmission) on September 6th? They also haven’t sequenced it or subtyped for neuraminidase yet.

health.mo.gov/news/news-item…
Human transmission would indicate that an H5 virus has significantly increased pandemic potential. So it’s important to assess that as soon as possible! But that can’t be assessed if nobody knows about it and health officials take their time doing basic testing.
Read 7 tweets
Aug 2
Yesterday I shared this piece by me & 40 colleagues on the harms of the “lab leak” hypothesis inflicts on science & scientists.

I’m not finished talking about it. The origins “debate” has consumed my life for >4 years & I want to talk personally about the damage it has caused.
First I’ll review what the commentary says because I know not everyone will read it. People are busy & @JVirology is not always going to publish thrilling page-turners for non-virologists. But here’s the link if you do want to read—it’s pretty accessible:

journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/jv…
There are two hypotheses for how the pandemic began:

1. Lab leak: virologists made it and it came from a virology lab

2. Zoonosis: it was transmitted from an infected animal to a person at the Huanan market in Wuhan

Both are reasonable.

Only one is supported by evidence. Image
Read 28 tweets
Jul 31
There's a big problem with the way the US is responding to the H5N1 cattle outbreak.

Samples are not being tested in a timely manner (months later) and then these results are not being disclosed in a timely manner (again, months later) either.

This outbreak is not containable.
A central principle of outbreak response and containment is to identify cases so they can be isolated. From there, contact tracing and quarantine measures need to be applied with the goal of eliminating further onward transmission (to cows, as well as spillover to humans).
In order for this to work, cases need to be identified as quickly as possible to prevent further spread and more undetected cases, which can then go on to spread the virus to new cows/animals/people.

And to identify cases quickly, you need to test in a timely manner.
Read 7 tweets
Jun 16
In spring 2020, Craig described NY Presbyterian Hospital to me as “the fucking apocalypse.”

By July, the same sentient pancake stack bragging about his spaceships told me that even though an even bigger surge was hitting sunbelt states, the epi data was “bs” & PCR is fake.
Because I, a virologist with 2 masters & a PhD, ~20 yrs experience with emerging viruses, & whose life at the time was like the forced reeducation scene in Clockwork Orange except with COVID data, was less skillful at interpreting basic epi data than a rich dude with opinions.


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This was a very stupid Twitter fight. It’s subjective who “won”—and certainly there were a lot of fanboys mad that I blasphemed their savior & ruined their fucking Mars colonization fantasies—but the consensus was that Elon was factually incorrect.
independent.co.uk/life-style/elo…
Read 10 tweets

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