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Alina Chan Profile picture
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Dec 30, 2022 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Zoonosis #OriginOfCovid proponents: "The virus was well adapted for not *just* human but tons of other animals!"

I'm not sure how this makes it any less likely that the virus came from a lab where bat viruses are pushed through primate & human cells, humanized mice & civets.
Dec 2017, virologist director of an OIE reference lab in China wanted to see scientists demonstrate in the lab that the human SARS strain can jump from bats to another animal, such as a civet. "If this could have been done, the evidence would be perfect.”
nature.com/articles/d4158…
Before the pandemic, Wuhan Institute of Virology: "We performed in vivo experiments in transgenic (human ACE2 expressing) mice and civets in 2018 and 2019 in the Institute’s biosafety laboratory. The viruses we used were bat SARSr-CoV close to SARS-CoV."
science.org/pb-assets/PDF/…
"The results suggested that bat SARSr-CoV can directly infect civets and can also infect mice with human ACE2 receptors. Yet it showed low pathogenicity in mice and no pathogenicity in civets."

These experiments remain to be published.
Novel viruses collected from bats, wild animals or farm animals are grown in the lab by passaging in cells from various species of animals, including primate, human, swine, bat.

"Cytopathogenic effects were observed in Vero cells only after five passages"
nature.com/articles/s4158…
EcoHealth Alliance x WIV award from NIAID:
"Predictive models of host range (i.e. emergence potential) will be tested experimentally using... virus infection experiments across a range of cell cultures from different species and humanized mice."
reporter.nih.gov/project-detail…
2018 five-year project led by WIV's Dr Shi ZL:
"analyze their ability to invade different host cells... cross-species infection and its pathogenic mechanism. Includes: viral entry, viral replication and assembly, and infection models."
archive.vn/spmNg Image

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Alina Chan Profile picture
Dec 29, 2022
“adaptation within humans was not needed for SARS-CoV-2 to spread”
- Proximal Origin & Friends, 2022, @ScienceMagazine

In other words, the pandemic virus was well adapted for humans.
@ScienceMagazine Proximal Origin & Friends also claim that the virus is well adapted for spreading in multiple species.

Yet, such a powerful virus left zero trace of its path and emerged in Wuhan out of all the hundreds of other cities in China and Southeast Asia.
@ScienceMagazine The scenario where the virus picked up its pandemic powers and immediately got on a non-stop high-speed train to Wuhan via an infected person or animal so as to leave no trace of its origin or journey is not impossible, but it makes for a very unlikely story.
Read 7 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Dec 22, 2022
It would be a huge letdown if the coming US-based #OriginOfCovid investigation does not ultimately lead to more insight into how the pandemic started.

Finding the origin requires looking into places where evidence is likely to exist, not just people who pushed a nature origin.
Finding the #OriginOfCovid is challenging enough without dealing with the sideshow of some scientists who squashed public discussion of the lab leak theory. Honestly, it would only help them to paint the investigation as anti-science if they become the focus of the investigation.
An investigation should spend as much of their efforts as possible on gathering incontrovertible #OriginOfCovid evidence.

Without that, the chances of holding people accountable for trying to rule out a lab leak prematurely are low because they will keep insisting "no evidence".
Read 7 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Dec 21, 2022
The methods by which some scientists culture or isolate novel viruses from nature can accidentally adapt these viruses for primate or human infection and transmission.

You don't know what viruses are in each sample but you can encourage them to grow in cells in the lab.
In VIRAL (paperback p120), we describe an instance of this by the Wuhan Institute of Virology. After 5 passages (serial passaging) in primate cells, a pig virus finally became sufficiently adept at causing cell death.
nature.com/articles/s4158…
There are other unorthodox methods to grow a novel virus in the lab, such as injecting them directly into live animals instead of passaging in cells. This can also inadvertently select for viruses with the ability to jump from species to species.
Read 7 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Dec 19, 2022
By these standards set by some virologists, there seems to be no strong evidence of a natural #OriginOfCovid and likely no way to ever prove that the virus came to people through the wildlife trade instead of research activities.

journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mB…
If you turn it around, then even if wild animals infected with the direct ancestor or close siblings of the pandemic virus were found, that would only strengthen but not prove a natural #OriginOfCovid since the Wuhan outbreak could still have been sparked by research activity.
I'm not sure what these virologists believe can be found. A video recording of scientists in Wuhan spilling a tube labeled pandemic virus, said researchers developing symptoms & the chain of transmissions leading to a superspreader event at the market - all caught on camera?
Read 5 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Dec 18, 2022
New editorial from the virologists who brought us "even if the pandemic virus was being studied in a lab prior to the 2019 outbreak, it would not prove that the virus came from a lab".

journals.asm.org/doi/epub/10.11…
Their August 2021 editorial:
Their new editorial (link in opening tweet) says:

"The bulk of this attack comes under the guise of concern about gain-of-function (GOF) research and persistent concerns about the origin of SARS-CoV-2."

Please strike out "comes under the guise of".
Read 5 tweets
Alina Chan Profile picture
Dec 16, 2022
The line between biodefense and bioweapons research is very thin. Both can involve the same types of experiments.

Sometimes it looks like "biodefense" is used for friendly countries and "bioweapons" is used for non-friendly countries.
When someone says an experiment is linked to a biodefense project, it doesn't automatically mean the experiment is not dangerous.

Similarly, if an experiment is linked to a bioweapons project, it doesn't automatically mean the experiment is dangerous.
For example, are these US-approved experiments to make influenza virus more transmissible in people considered biodefense or bioweapons research?

science.org/content/articl…
Read 6 tweets

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