I ♥️ #science and want researchers to be properly represented – and this isn’t happening with the ongoing #misinformation on #covidorigins.

A🧵on #originsofcovid #virology theories. 1/n Scientists such as virologists aren’t duty-bound to explain their field to everyone, particularly to those that willingly misrepresent or just misunderstand, claiming ‘convoluted’ messages from experts. 2/n

Almost the 2️⃣0️⃣2️⃣4️⃣ New Year, so here's a Countdown of Top 🔟 Reasons #COVID Was Not Caused By A Lab Leak🧵
#covidorigins #originsofcovid #scicomm 🔟 Bat progenitors found in South Asia are far from Wuhan yet are of relatively same distance for SARS1 origins:
🦇 ➡️ market animals ➡️ humans

A mythbusting notice that the #lableak #covidorigins 'theory' is absolutely rubbish.

Let me explain as simply as possible, using the most critical data to date. 🧵 1/n People became ill in Wuhan in December 2019. Samples were sequenced, and 2 #SARS2 lineages were found (A and B). However, the first 12 were lineage B. 2/n

It's November 2023, what do we know about #COVIDOrigins? How strong is the evidence of a zoonotic spillover? Here, I'll sum up all the research and point out what some nefarious players are up to. 1/15 For all the research until May 2023, see this mega🧵
2/15

https://twitter.com/BenFPiercePhD/status/1657116841565737000

The elusive raccoon dog. A mammal susceptible to #SARS2, sold live at the Huanan Market by 2019 - could it or other mammals have caused the #COVID outbreak in December 2019?

More #covidorigins data indicates that yes, such animals remain the most likely culprit. 1/11 A wonderfully written - please read it - new preprint explains the context of missing gaps prior to this analysis. One being whether the lineage A sample found in the Market in Jan 2020, published only in Feb 2022, was indeed lineage A. 2/11
biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

I'm motivated to speak out on #covidorigins because it's the clearest example, right after vaccines, where #scicomm is losing, with consequences likely to lead to more mistrust in data/research in general. 1/n Multiple papers, theses and unpublished works, clarify how the WIV was not researching the progenitor to #SARS2. Want a summary of this? Just check out the book Viral, authored and touted by lab leakers.
It says that same: no known #SARS2 progenitor. 2/n

https://twitter.com/BenFPiercePhD/status/1662202674480119815

Claims that Proximal Origins was written to silence debate on #covidorigins, despite it clearly stating "More scientific data could swing the balance of evidence to favor one hypothesis over another."?

So much for silencing. 🧵1/n I asked the twitterverse (xverse?) whether any genuine critiques of the Proximal Origins paper existed. I was sent 2 peer reviewed critiques.

Do they have any merit? 2/n

Despite reviewing mountains of emails and hearing hours of testimony about Fauci and the Proximal Origins #covidorigins paper, @COVIDSelect missed an actual cover-up.

Thanks to @mstandaert for his excellent insights.

A 🧵. This gets wild. 1/n On 31 Dec 2019, the Huanan Seafood Market was closed. Prior to environmental sampling, the Market was cleaned using chemicals "potent enough to corrode equipment" (@TheJohnSudworth), which makes the CCDC team's finding of any RNA (less stable than DNA) just remarkable. 2/n

Nearly 1 year on, if only #covidorigins #lableak supporters would read @MichaelWorobey et al’s Science 2022 paper, in full.

How does it stand up against its critics? A 🧵. 1/20 As a preprint in Feb 2022, the paper was attacked as masquerading as science, within just 2 hours: an impulsive attack, given the preprint was posted with no announcement by then and is 67 pages long. 2/20
zenodo.org/record/6299600

Such an important point on #covidorigins: if it were a lab leak, Lineage A would have infected people earlier, and anyone within or closer to the WIV.

It didn't. 1/7 In 2021, Michael Worobey commented that Lineage A could have come from another market, but supposed that it came from the Huanan Market. (2/7) https://t.co/174iimtzCiscience.org/doi/10.1126/sc…

Last weekend, I found a copy of the book “Viral” in the library. Screenshots and references to this book are often included in some nasty replies to some of my threads on #COVIDOrigins.

So, what does this book say? 🧵1/23 The version I read was updated in 2022 (probably early 2022; Omicron is mentioned along with preprints from February 2022, but published papers from Summer 2022 are not included). I’m not aware on exactly which parts were updated from earlier versions. 2/23

1/ Several details and nuances to the #CovidOrigins / #OriginsofCovid debate: here's a mega-🧵with all the info you need. 👇 2/ It's April 2023: how much data are there in support of the zoonotic (originating from animals) origin, versus the lab leak (LL) theory?