🚨🚨🚨 @KatherineJWu first to get this scoop down.

The Chinese CDC finally uploaded market sampling data, and as expected, environmental swaps positive for SARS-CoV-2 point to raccoon dogs.

Yet another strong piece of evidence for #zoonotic origin & against any #lableak myth
@KatherineJWu Just to add a bit of context:

Environmental swaps were taken from the Huanan market, and that many of them tested positive was already confirmed a year ago in a pre-print from researchers at the Chinese CDC.

However, they did not make their sequencing data available and...
@KatherineJWu ...thus had trouble getting their pre-print accepted.

It now appears that in order to get the paper published (speculation!), one of the researchers uploaded the sequences, and voila, they contained exactly what people like @edwardcholmes @MichaelWorobey expected; animal DNA/RNA

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More from @PhilippMarkolin

Mar 16
🚨🚨🚨 NEW EVIDENCE #zoonosis
Chinese researchers (who have had troubles getting data out) finally managed to sneak upload full #sequencing data from environmental swaps at Huanan market.

Show: Co-occurance of #animal sequences with SARS-CoV-2 RNA

Added to the evidence map 🔽
@KatherineJWu 's atlantic article first reported on this new development.

(independent reseachers have been waiting on these data to come out for over a year)

I will give some context in the next few tweets:
theatlantic.com/science/archiv…
1⃣ Does this prove that SARS-CoV-2 came from racoon dogs?

Not definitively. Co-occurance of sequences could be from chance contamination in theory. Also, even if racoon dogs were indeed infected, they might just have been amplifiers at market, not the original source.

BUT...
Read 8 tweets
Mar 14
The incompetence US media machine is scary.
There is nothing in this article but speculation, started again by some republican stuffer document drop, no evidence of wrongdoing, but careful phrasing to obfuscate. "Somebody said they maybe found evidence of potential doublebilling" Image
When exactly became it okay to just run with made up stories? Just because two completely different projects sometimes require spending on similar lab gear, materials or training does not mean anything was double billed. That's just ignorance about scientific work, everything...
looks like a wash for amateurs who fundamentally do not understand what goes into a research project.

It is scary how predictable these false sensationalist media stories are. It is literally #2 down here ⬇️ Image
Read 8 tweets
Mar 1
NEW EXCLUSIVE from me:

#Denounce, #deny, #deceive - 6 common tactics of media manipulators and why they work to sabotage public discourse

Read:
protagonistfuture.substack.com/p/denounce-den…
It is time to stop being naive about online discourse.

“The discourse holds so many traps for the unwary. It’s a bit like financial scams and gambling that are a tax on the financially naïve. A similar tax is being levied on the intellectually naïve.” —  @ArthurCDent

1/
@ArthurCDent In the article, I lay out 6 common #manipulation tactics and why they work to sabotage discourse on scientific topics.

First up is "just asking questions" or "#sealioning", which uses social expectations and #framing effects to distort conversations.

2/
Read 12 tweets
Feb 2
😂

Some real talk:

It can be difficult to tell with certainty whether a random virus is engineered or not based purely on the sequence, but when we talk about a specific virus, e.g. SC2, we were 'lucky' that we can tell with high certainty it is a natural virus.

Why?
1/
We were lucky in the sense that coronaviruses evolve through recombination (not only random mutations & selection).

That means their genomes consist of a patchwork of puzzle pieces assembled by crossings paths with other CoVs.

In SC2's case, we talking like 27 recombination pc
Each piece comes with its own evolutionary history and can be mapped on a #phylogenetic family tree based on common ancestors & cousin viruses.

This allows researchers to figure out what "crossing events" lead to SC2 genome by sampling CoVs in the wild
academic.oup.com/gbe/article/14…
Read 6 tweets
Dec 25, 2022
The Brownstone institute is a fracking-billionaire funded anti-science #disinformation outlet

I just highlight some passages to show that the #lableak conspiracy myth would always have happened, no matter where COVID first broke out

If not the WIV, then 🔽

A master thread:
1/
Many amplifiers, including some science journalists, believe that a legitimate scientific uncertainty & geographic coincidence underneath the #originofcovid controversy is the root cause and driver for the conspiracy myth.

This is false
Yes, the inital uncertainties were real
2/
but no matter where the virus initially broke out, there would always be some lab or some scientists that could be made to associate with.

All pandemics were followed by #conspiracy theories about their origins. The 1918 flu was blamed on the Germans and their aspirin, ffs.

3/
Read 15 tweets
Dec 25, 2022
Alina Chan is not a friend of a GOP witch hunt into US virologists. She knows it will not yield any evidence. Albeit related to her endless mudslinging, she fears it will eventually backfire & vindicate her targets... quite cynically, she'd rather prefer to abuse uncertainty.
For her strategic goals, it is much better to manipulate the public with endless speculative tantrums and artificial uncertainty than see virologists being not found guilty in congressional hearings.
The simple fact is that she made a big bet being a vocal contrarian and now...
all that awaits her is the public waking up to her nonsense and a fall from grace (she has already fallen out from professional circles because of her conspiracy mongering ofc)
To stay in the public limelight, she much rather sees the origins uncertainty never resolve, or go...
Read 5 tweets

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