This chapter dives into the ecological and molecular details underlying the natural origin of SARS-CoV-2.

It explains the extraordinary biology of bats, their unique immune systems, and their role as reservoirs for diverse coronaviruses, emphasizing the complex ...

1/4

https://twitter.com/PhilippMarkolin/status/1961502783590596791

... social structures and behaviors of bat species that facilitate viral recombination.

It describes how mosaic genomes like SARS-CoV-2’s could only have emerged through natural evolutionary processes within diverse bat populations and intermediate hosts.

2/4

I gave a long interview to @BenjaminMateus7 about my book Lab Leak Fever and the politics surrounding the lab leak controversy.

Benjamin did a great job editing for conciseness and prompting some pretty deep questions

Some highlights in thread ⬇️

1/ "My account doesn’t rely on unverifiable Chinese sources. That independence is important politically, since both China & US have advanced self-serving narratives

From my vantage point in Switzerland, I aimed to cut through this geopolitical tug-of-war and focus on the evidence."

Listen to @PeterHotez; he points out 3 strategies of the anti-science movement to shift blame now that their actions killed so many people:

1) blame the vaccines for the deaths
2) blame the scientists for creating COVID
3) blame public health for bad communication

All false
1/

https://twitter.com/TDRnews/status/1823277911203312094

The anti-vaccine movement became a juggernaut during COVID-19 by exploiting people's anxieties & profiting from their fears

Because emotional manipulation is politically valuable, republicans soon merged with the ideology

Unfortunately, that caused over 200k Americans to die
2/

I don't know, but I feel like the cool kids don't get sucked into magical worldviews and waste their time live-action roleplaying as "investigators" in trite conspiracy myths.

Which makes all of those in the media who fall for them, over and over again, kinda embarassing? There is no version of the lab leak idea that does not assume conspiratorial elements, given the evidence we have today.

There is no lab leak "theory" in the first place, just innuendo and magical thinking with mutual contradictory ideas that can not explain available evidence

🚨 Public service announcment 🚨

During the election season, discourse manipulators and influence campaigns work overtime to mislead citizens about scientific topics.

Here are 18 common tactics explained, why it works, and why you should guard yourself against it.

A 🧵

1/



First up are the merchants of doubt

They use an array of manipulation techniques to denounce experts with various smear tactics, deny a scientific consensus exists, and deceive the public with irrelevant stories.

Full story with case examples here:


2/protagonist-science.com/p/denounce-den…

Conspiracy theorists are shocked to learn that a science blogger writing about the bat origins of SARS-CoV-2 visits field sampling expeditions to interview bat researchers 😅

Good journalistic practice must be a nefarious plot 🤣

A niche 🧵 about conspiratorial ideation

1/ Yesterday, I posted the above fotos to explain that my writing is based on expert interviews, personal research experience, scientific analysis and of course legwork.

Conspiracy theorists have claimed since 2022 that I must be a "paid" shill; from China, Biden, Fauci or EHA

2/

🚨Important facts 🚨

SARS-CoV-2 is a natural virus that has nothing to do with gain-of-function research.

While a complex topic, there is zero scientific doubt behind this today.

--> Full story:

Here are 5 key highlights why we know this:
A short🧵

1/protagonist-science.com/p/treacherous-… I) SARS-CoV-2 has a mosaic genome that could only have come about through viral #recombination with other bat viruses in the wild.

No laboratory procedure or experiment can create, fake, or simulate this natural process.

Design is out of the question
It was once a bat virus

2/

Decent article from @benjmueller at NYT about the administration's political decision to defund EHA.

He ends on a curious note 🔽

"Why now, 3 years after all the banalities the HHS cites to justify the farce were already known?"

I have some thoughts

1/
nytimes.com/2024/05/15/hea…
It is a critically important election year, so the Biden WH can not afford to have this emotional issue with large visibility be a differentiator between the parties.

They have to act as the ones driving accountability so the Republicans can not weaponize it against them

2/

There will be a ramp-up of media coverage to bring the false #lableak myth back to the attention of the masses; right when the general election heats up.

Multiple reasons for this, first and foremost the political need for emotional activation of potential voters

A short🧵 As I have written previously, the #lableak myth is a powerful emotional narrative that profits from the many incentive asymmetries in our modern information ecosystems.

This ensures not only attention, but retention in public discourse.

Read:


2/ protagonist-science.com/p/a-tale-of-tw…

The Furin-cleavage site (#FCS) in SARS-CoV-2 is one of the most misunderstood genetic elements in the whole #originsofcovid story.

#lableak proponents consider it a "pandemic trigger" that was recklessly inserted by #GoF researchers

Do they have a point?

A thread
1/ Especially an unfunded research proposal from 2018 called DEFUSE that got played up by amplifiers empowered imaginations.

So before we jump into the FCS itself, a quick sidebar here 🔽

While DEFUSE is irrelevant, it hightlights two telling misconceptions

2/

🚨🚨 Did SARS-CoV-2 come from gain-of-function research? And if so, will we ever find out?

I have been on a scientific journey for a definitive answer that took me to the cutting edge of #covidorigin science.

Here is what I found
➡️ open.substack.com/pub/protagonis…
It is fair to say that virology has been seen with suspicion and experts are distrusted.

How much of this is self-inflicted, and how much is driven by forces beyond science?

The idea of arcane gain-of-function experiments creating flask monsters is powerful, it evokes fears.

Very interesting paper from Jijón S. et al., using a population-dynamic approach (not a whole genome seq. approach) to date the first spillover event of the Wuhan outbreak

--> Nov.28

This is a methodologically independent confirmation of previously published estimates.

1/ The idea is to look at how an epidemic progresses (based on branching) and infer these dynamical parameters from known progressions

Once the model is calibrated, it can be used to estimate a time window when the first infection likely occurred; which might be before the tMRCA
2/

As 2024 ushered in a new year of myth, #manipulation & magical thinking, too few have adjusted to counterbalance the #vulnerabilities of our broken information ecosystem

During US elections, this might spell democratic backsliding as online #discourse will be weaponized

A 🧵
1/ The disruption of our information technology broke a few things we needed as guardrails for democracy, such as the free flow of information & journalistic principles for information sharing

Today, gatekeepers have changed to:
#Algorithms, #influencers & #audience demand

2/

One thing that is fascinating with the history of the #lableak myth is how many people have been fooled by naïve claims that "one can not tell from the genome" one way or the other whether this is a natural virus.

This is false.
In the case of SARS-CoV-2, there is zero doubt.
1/ People might have encountered arguments such as we can modify viruses with "no see 'um" genetic methods, or just design a sequence & synthesize whole cloth

-> this implies nobody can ever #disprove whether a new genome has been man-made, only sometimes prove that it was
2/

NEW EXCLUSIVE from me

#Disparage, #disorient, #dispute - the manipulation playbook after anti-science actors, part 3

"In the #battlespace of information, we are civilians in harm’s way."

Please read, share, and take it to heart:
open.substack.com/pub/protagonis…
The full range of tactics and why the work is summarized here. 🔽

➡️ Free-access medium version of the article here:

A thread with more details follows below

1/ protagonist-science.medium.com/disparage-diso…

This is what scientists like @PeterHotez have been screaming from the top of their lungs to anybody willing to listen to facts and reason.

Anti-science activism in public health, no matter if smoking, alternative medicine, or vaccination, comes with a gruesome body count.

https://twitter.com/CharlesPPierce/status/1686724192346025984

It is not a victimless crime to mislead the public about evidence-based interventions and treatments, or selling citizens medical distrust and fake miracle cures.

It is however a lucrative business for media manipulators.

Where are the regulations and accountability?

The idea that it is up to scientists to solve #conspiracy myths around their topic of expertise, otherwise they deserve what is coming to them, is in fact anti-science and quite harmful.

Yet often #influencers point the finger directly at those injustly maligned scientists. https://t.co/LlRES8rxoQ

https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/1680011708302073857

There are so many #asymmetries in our information age that #disfavor science of popular myths; but the idea that it false solely on scientists to correct the record, educate, debunk and explain themselves over and over again is unequivocally injust.

Society needs to realize ...

Predictable, despicable, intolerable.

The recent smear attacks & character assassinations on a celebrated vaccine scientist all come from the same #conspiracy myth-addled info sphere that profits from creating conflict, spectacle & exploiting the fears of vulnerable communities.

https://twitter.com/PeterHotez/status/1671976721644396557

Conspiracy theories can be #weaponized into a tool of power, wielded by demagogues and media manipulators alike to further their own strategic, ideological, financial or political goals.

Science & reason are the one defense society has against their greedy #assault.

#Information cascade alert!

The US #intelligence agencies are supposed to reveal all information they have with respect to the #OriginOfCovid

I wanted to use the opportunity to explain exactly what you will see happening in the media, no matter the content of those reports
🧵 First, let's talk about expectations.

From the get-go, it is absolutely clear that there is no #smoking gun or similar to be expected.

The intelligence services all had access to the same information and most assessments are low confidence, with 4 agencies favoring #zoonosis.

Surprise, the climate change denying, Twitter-files propagandists find themselves coming down on the #bioweapon myth too.

@shellenberger @mtaibbi are such bottom-feeding losers it would almost break my heart if they weren't as malicious & intentional in their quest for attention The alleged sick workers are neither a new nor true part of the #bioweapon mythology; it is made up BS from David Asher and the State Department under Pompeo, going back to 2020 and laundered through some unnamed intelligence sources that got wide media coverage in 2021.

At some point, every #lableak advocate can't help but go full radical. "Crime of the century", "avoidable pandemic" dogwhistle and calling for a "tribunal" based on nothing but vibes.

These people have no place in any normal society and their #lies deserve to haunt them forever. Oh look, the lackeys of actual criminals like billion-dollar-fraudster Miles Guo have no shame to lie about ordinary scientists.

@DiLiMengYAN1 everybody knows you are a liar, fraudster and exchanged you modest credentials for a media stunt by con artists.
Was it worth it?