Share this page!

Alina Chan Profile picture
Twitter logo
Nov 5 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
I am willing to go on any live #OriginOfCovid debate or panel with the Worobey et al. / Proximal Origin authors.

This interview hosted by @ScienceMagazine @AAAS from a year ago is well worth a watch.
twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1…
If the Proximal Origin crowd wants home field advantage, ask @profvrr to host a live This Week in Virology #TWiV with 2-3 experts per side ie side that says there is dispositive evidence for a market #OriginOfCovid vs side that says both natural & lab hypotheses remain plausible.
@profvrr Since Dr Robert Garry of Proximal Origin was willing to go on @MegynKellyShow to defend his position that the pandemic definitely started at the Wuhan market, his colleagues might consider getting their hypothesis checked on other popular shows/podcasts.
Everyone feel free to tag your favorite show or podcast hosts here to see if they're up to the challenge to get experts from both sides of #OriginOfCovid on their program for a fair discussion of where the evidence stands on this issue.

• • •

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
Nov 6
One thing I pointed out on @MegynKellyShow:

Dr Garry said the Wuhan market samples with virus cluster near one wildlife stall.

Actually, it looks like they cluster near the toilets (green blocks). This would be 100% expected considering the sizable human outbreak at the market.
My question is where is this Chinese CDC manuscript at in the peer review process? @Nature

It's been more than 8 months since the preprint came out. Has it stalled because the authors will not release their complete datasets?
researchsquare.com/article/rs-137…
@Nature Chinese CDC preprint says there was no association between market environmental samples with virus and the sale of any type of product. The @ScienceMagazine papers insist there is despite the authors not having access to the data.

If the data is shared, we will know the answer.
Read 6 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Nov 1
Safe to say this program has learnt zero lessons from the pandemic.

Which part of "scientists can seamlessly recreate and genetically modify pathogens" do these experts not understand?
wired.com/story/how-to-d…
You can't just fund everything with machine learning in it.

Does data exist that can tell you what sequences every lab around the world has in their possession?

If no, then this approach is moot unless you're looking for an escaped Addgene plasmid.
If you put $5 million in front of a scientist and ask them if they can use machine learning to determine if a novel pathogen came from a lab - with no way to confirm if their approach works - my bet is that they will say they can do it.
Read 4 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Oct 31
Afaik before the pandemic, there was only 1 lab in the world sampling novel SARS-like viruses from South China/SE Asia, synthesizing & engineering them, working with live viruses at BL2+3, with idea of adding cleavage sites to them.

The pandemic virus leaked in that lab's city.
When the virus leaked in that lab's city, its scientists were among the 1st to get the virus sequence.

Yet, in their paper, they didn't mention the novel cleavage site or that they had been working with 9 closest relatives to this virus linked to cases of mysterious pneumonia.
It took almost 2 years for someone to leak their early 2018 research proposal describing plans to look for rare cleavage sites and put these in SARS-like viruses.

The scientists on that grant were from both China and the US. None of them told the public about this proposal.
Read 4 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Oct 29
I have preprinted my #OriginOfCovid review "Evidence for a proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2 in the wildlife trade is lacking".

This is the most extensively editorially & peer reviewed manuscript I have written.
zenodo.org/record/7262462
In the most recent round of peer review, the journal editor said that they would not ask the 2 peer reviewers if I could publish their reviews. However, I've heard that it is appropriate to quote a few lines from each review.
Reviewer 1:

The origin of SARS-CoV-2 has, unfortunately, become a controversial and often vitriolically argued topic. The majority of popular press and "high-prestige" scientific journals have largely avoided any research or reviews that cast doubt on the prevailing narrative...
Read 13 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Oct 26
Almost 3 years into the pandemic, the most compelling evidence today that could convince me of a natural spillover #OriginOfCovid at the Huanan market is that of a major cover-up. For example, infected animals at markets & farms comprehensively hidden from or by the authorities.
The natural spillover hypothesis relies on an explosively infectious SARS-like virus, that takes any opportunity to jump from species to species, traveling 1000s of km from SE Asia or South China to Wuhan, without leaving any trace of animal or human infection along the way.
No originally infected animals found.

No evidence of close virus relatives circulating in Wuhan.

No animal variants of the virus.

The only SARS2-like viruses found in the wildlife trade have been in pangolins, which were not observed to have been sold in Wuhan markets 2017-19.
Read 5 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Oct 24
If it makes anyone feel better, in 2020, an entire gov-funded program said they could rule out foreign sequences in the pandemic virus after 10 minutes of analysis.

No one was banging on them on twitter for failing kindergarten molecular biology.
futurehuman.medium.com/how-do-we-know…
A scientific conclusion is only as good as the data it is based on.

If the data is sparse/non-existent, incomplete, noisy, or biased, then no matter what the p-value is, the conclusion cannot be strong.
This is a frustrating aspect of the #OriginOfCovid debate: scientists on both sides making strong claims about what they know or can infer based on very little data.

And when you push back by pointing out the lack of data, you can't get published because it's not "novel".
Read 8 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!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Send Email!

:(