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Flo Débarre Profile picture
Flo Débarre
@flodebarre
@flodebarre@mstdn.science @flodebarre.bsky.social • CNRS senior researcher, Theoretician in Evolutionary Biology • Own views • EN & FR
5 subscribers
Sep 21 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Je ne suis pas la seule à avoir été choquée par l'accusation du Monde envers mes collègues, non justifiée (car infondée) et faite sans recherche de contradictoire. D'où vient-elle ? 1/8 Il demande une enquête en vue d’une possible rétractation de la nouvelle étude, et va jusqu’à évoquer des soupçons d’inconduite scientifique. @hervenirom cite Richard Ebright, un spécialiste de bactéries qui n'a pas fait de recherche sur Covid-19, est un activiste de la fuite de labo, et qui passe ses journées à tweeter des insultes. 2/8
Sep 20 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
The quote attributed to @Ayjchan in Le Monde was so dumb that I thought she was misquoted, but she posted something even more stupid on Twitter.
No, Alina Chan, this is not what the papers claim!!
And I know it because I co-led the new study... 1/ The latest analysis by Proximal Origin authors and colleagues directly refutes their own 2022 claims in Science. Their new Cell paper argues that the pandemic most likely started with Lineage A (but the early market cases were all Lineage B) & likely only in early Dec 2019. 7:31 PM · Sep 19, 2024 Two figures having similar layouts does not mean that they show the same things!!!
What is even weirder is that @Ayjchan is posting the legend, and it's clear the percentages are about totally separate points 🤦‍♀️ 2/ screenshot of Chan's tweets of the figures
Aug 28 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Let's now talk a bit about some science:
In his 2021 article, Jesse Bloom over-emphasized the significance of the "recovered" sequences.
They contain only limited information, because they are partial, and key positions are not covered: ▫️1/🧵

J Bloom's paper contained two figures with phylogenetic trees, one without the "recovered" sequences, one with them. The three trees correspond to his three proposed progenitors: A+C18060T, A+C29095T, A+T3171C.
In the recovered sequences, only 29095 is covered. ▫️2/ slide showing the two figures with three trees each
Aug 23 • 30 tweets • 9 min read
It is time to share our findings about a study by @jbloom_lab that had a lot of echo in 2021.
TL;DR: The sequences that J Bloom recovered were not from the earliest cases, but from late January 2020. He had the information, deleted it during his analysis, then ignored it.▫️1/8 composite image showing our preprint, Bloom's paper title ("Recovery of Deleted Deep Sequencing Data Sheds More Light on the Early Wuahn SARS-CoV-2 Epidemic"), and with arrows describing findings. Main finding: The “recovered” sequences were not that early: they were collected on 30 January 2020. The information was present in the datasets used by Jesse Bloom, but he deleted it, and never mentioned it. In June 2021, Jesse Bloom announced in a Twitter thread and in a preprint having recovered sequences from early in the epidemic. His description and the media coverage (including his press release) led people to think that some sequences were from the earliest cases. ▫️2/8 Slide showing screenshots of media articles, with the term "earliest" cases / patients / samples underlined
May 17 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
[A very niche thread]

There were live bats in Wuhan, both inside and outside of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, but neither seem relevant to the origin of the pandemic. ▫️1/10🧵 illustration: images of bats Zeynep has been repeating the odd and false claim that Wuhan's only bats were in labs. There are bats in Wuhan! And if @zeynep had cared to just properly read what she cites (see QT), she'd have realized she was the one making up the claim. ▫️2/

screenshot of iNaturalist in Wuhan, showing bats
Apr 20 • 8 tweets • 4 min read
Proponents of a lab origin of the Covid-19 pandemic often claim that circumstantial evidence is in favor of their hypothesis... while ignoring key circumstantial evidence *against* it.

Some examples in this thread: ▫️1/🧵

1⃣ We now know that SARS-CoV-2 was already spreading in Wuhan in December 2019. Some lab leakers claim that WIV scientists were infected and hospitalized in November 2019. This should have caused alarm. And yet, Shi Zhengli was at a meeting in Singapore in December 2019. ▫️2/ photo of Shi Zhengli and colleagues at a Nipah meeting in Singapore in Dec 2019
Jan 11 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
[a not-so-niche thread]
In September 2021, a leaked research proposal was made public. Called "Defuse" and submitted to DARPA, it was not funded.
Some saw it as a "blueprint for SARS-CoV-2". Via FOIA, I obtained drafts of this proposal. It was not a blueprint; here's why. ▫️1/9 illustration, bats flying out of a cave The Defuse proposal contained a contentious paragraph, in which "cleavage site" and "furin" were mentioned. The text was unclear enough for people to understand it the way they wanted, like in a Rorschach test. But the drafts are clearer. ▫️2/9 text of the proposal and Rorschach test in the background (looking like a coronavirus)
Aug 18, 2023 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Un fil 🧵 pour partager des informations sur BA.2.86, un nouveau variant de SARS-CoV-2.

Nouveau venu dans la grande famille Omicron, BA.2.86 est un cousin lointain des variants XBB* qui étaient devenus majoritaires en 2023 ▫️1/ Les mutations portées par BA.2.86 (et comme son nom indique) suggèrent qu’il est un descendant de BA.2, variant de la famille Omicron qui a causé un rebond de cas début 2022 ▫️2/

(🖼️ @nicolasberrod / Le Parisien, modifiée) Infographie variants Omicron, montrant BA.2.86
Jul 19, 2023 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
[a very niche thread]

For months, DRASTIC and Paris group lab leak activists demanded information on a viral isolate from Wuhan, WIV6, insinuating that it could be a hidden progenitor of SARS-CoV-2.

TL;DR Not only it was not a coronavirus, but the information was public. ▫️1/8 Illustration: AI generated image with coronavirus and flowers, colourful A central tenet of the lab leak hypothesis is the idea that Shi Zhengli, of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), is hiding key data.

She already said her lab did not have a virus closer to SARS-CoV-2 than RaTG13, but for lab leakers, this is not enough: they want proof. ▫️2/8
Jul 10, 2023 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
Some people struggle with the idea that the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic in a city hosting a lab working on coronaviruses may just be a coincidence.

But coincidences do happen. Here are some Covid-specific examples of coincidences: ▫️1/🧵 1️⃣ The first local Covid case in the UK was from the very town that had been used as an example of the starting point of an outbreak, in a BBC documentary a couple of years before. ▫️2/

https://t.co/EBqiUT4CoC
Jun 24, 2023 • 14 tweets • 6 min read
Le tant attendu rapport declassifié de la communauté du renseignement US-américaine sur l’origine de la pandémie a été publié pendant la nuit.

Ciblé sur l’Institut de Virologie de Wuhan (WIV), ce rapport indique qu’aucun élément incriminant n’a été trouvé. ▫️1/🧵 Lien vers le rapport :

Lien vers la demande officielle à l’origine du rapport (ciblée sur le WIV et sur la rumeur de chercheurs malades) : https://t.co/I5oBYW66Pd ▫️2/ https://t.co/VCpP9TvdHodni.gov/files/ODNI/doc…
congress.gov/bill/118th-con…
Jun 23, 2023 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Journalists: your job goes beyond reporting what people say; you have to try and find out whether what they say is actually true or not.

Here are some tips regarding the "sick workers" story: ▫️1/8 Is the story internally consistent?

- It changed over time. Initially it involved a female intern, YH. Her name is not in the final list. Why?

- Some scientists were said to have disappeared; have they?

- BH's wife is said to have died in late 2019. Is this true? ▫️2/8
Jun 21, 2023 • 23 tweets • 10 min read
[a no-so niche thread]

A chronology of the rumour of sick lab workers in Wuhan 🧵

TL;DR: promoted in 2021 by (former) US State Department investigators; revived a few days ago. Until now, seems to only rely on the word of a few people. Check tweets 13 & 14. ▫️1/23 Acronyms used in the thread:

- CoV: coronavirus
- (O)DNI: (Office of the) Director of National Intelligence (in the US)
- IC: (US) Intelligence Community
- WIV: Wuhan Institute of Virology
- YH, BH, YZ, PY: Initials of scientists at WIV (I won't name them)
▫️2/23
Jun 13, 2023 • 12 tweets • 7 min read
Prompted by the Times article, I have tried to track down the origin of the Zhou Yusen / WIV story.

This thread presents what I have found so far; if you know earlier references, please suggest them to me! ▫️1/12

1️⃣ Early mentions of Zhou Yusen’s death do not link it to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (for a reason: his affiliation is in Beijing).

The earliest I have found is a report on a Lu De show in Sep 2020 (but I have not found the original video) ▫️2/12

web.archive.org/web/2020092403…
Jun 12, 2023 • 11 tweets • 6 min read
This @thetimes article is the most scientifically inept and journalistically shameful article on Covid origins I have read so far (the bar was high).

It does not “reveal” anything: it repackages old (debunked) stories as new, and spreads wild unverified rumours.

Examples:▫️1/11 @Arbuthnott 10 June REVEALE... Most of the @thetimes article corresponds to unverified stories that David Asher already promoted in the media in 2021, in outlets like the Daily Mail or the Daily Caller.

There is no more evidence today than there was at the time. ▫️2/11 Screenshots of news website...
Jun 3, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
In a thread, @Ayjchan claimed that if we believe it's plausible that animals at the Huanan market were infected by SARS-CoV-2, we should also believe that WIV workers were infected as well.

But SARS-CoV-2 was detected at the market. It was not, AFAIK, present at WIV in 2019▫️1/4 @Ayjchan Based on these st... And that's the key difference between approaches:
Some base their assessments on data that exist;
Others base their assessments on speculations.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology was working on SARS-like viruses, but there is no evidence that they had SARS-CoV-2's progenitor.▫️2/4
Jun 1, 2023 • 10 tweets • 5 min read
The former head of China CDC, George Gao, said that a lab origin of SARS-CoV-2 was possible.

Is a lab origin possible? Yes.
Did George Gao say it was possible? Yes.
Is this news? No, he also did a month ago.
Is this an admission of a lab leak? No.

A brief press review: ▫️1/ There was renewed attention for the lab leak hypothesis this week, following a BBC paper with a clickbait headline misrepresenting the actual content of the quote. ▫️2/

bbc.com/news/world-asi… Screenshot of the linked ar...
May 26, 2023 • 25 tweets • 10 min read
[a niche thread]

This recent article on infections of pangolins by a virus related to SARS-CoV-2 provides a great opportunity to talk about some of the most ridiculous and damaging Covid origin stories:

The conspiracies of the pangolin papers ▫️1/🧵

https://t.co/c6g6Hzd8kJ
AI-generated image of a pangolin reading a paper - Conflict of interest: I am now a coauthor of one of the protagonists of the story, @edwardcholmes (but I started working on the pangolin papers before our collaboration)

- This thread includes pieces of information that were not yet public (tweets 13, 15, 16, 17, 19) ▫️2/
May 25, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Something I find absolutely unbearable from the Twitter Lab Leaker trolls, is their constant insinuations that scientists are lying. And that some journalists and members of the public follow them.

An example: their recent obsession for @edwardcholmes’s GISAlD account. ▫️1/5 Interviewed about the Huanan market sequences story, Eddie explained that he had not downloaded the data himself, because he had not used his GlSAlD account in years. It is a simple statement of fact. Why would he lie about this?! And yet trolls used it to try to smear him. ▫️2/5
Apr 30, 2023 • 20 tweets • 6 min read
Hi @zeynep,
Last week in Geneva, I told you that your 2021 @nytimes Opinion on Covid origin had not aged well.
You challenged me to find errors. Here are some. ▫️1/ Link: nytimes.com/2021/06/25/opi…

Disclaimer: in June 2021, I believed the stories I am about to debunk. I had been introduced to them by someone I trusted; I had not yet worked on them and taken the time to check them. ▫️2/
Apr 29, 2023 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
The metagenomic data shared by Liu et al., analysed by them, us and then recently by @jbloom_lab, contain a condensed and increasingly faded history of SARS-CoV-2 in the Huanan market.

A bit like what this image is to the Casablanca movie ▫️1/10 Image with superimposition of frames from the Casablanca movie, until the final scene The virus was introduced into the market, humans were infected, they infected other humans, until there were enough severe cases in hospitals that doctors realized something was happening. The market was quickly closed down, and teams immediately went and collected samples ▫️2/10