8. Continuing: “Our study rejects the hypothesis of emergence as a result of a recent recombination event.”—> I.e. the authors also conclude that the new #coronavirus did not originate from random recent admixture between different coronaviruses. Other possibilities of course.
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33) ...is done in the realm of universities and academic conferences. But with such a fast moving

#coronavirus, the normal pace of science is suddenly upturned and the public thirst for information like the R0 or
of a virus outpaces the time to properly vet all studies.Show this thread -
34) Same way I also made mistake with my off the cuff “holy mother of God” one night last week, among other things like misreading a paper detail about a SARS’s R0 (that was too low). It’s a valuable lesson learned as someone who once only had a modest Twitter of 2k friends...
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35) As they say, “To err is human; to correct, divine.” What we do to correct shows the world what we stand for. And I have indeed stood for science + facts my entire career, even challenging big pharma on a billion-dollar drug. It landed me in hot water 14 years ago doing so...
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36) ...but worth the effort because fighting for science and the pursuit of evidence-based public health is important. That is why, during this challenging multi-country epidemic these next few weeks (hopefully not too much longer), we all refocus on sound thoughtful data and...
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37) ...and use thoughtful evaluation of the gushing torrent of
outbreak data that’ll continue pouring out to help stop the epidemic. So let’s all not rush to judge/run with the pre-print too much, and let’s not rush to conspiracy theories, and let’s all be kinder to each other.Show this thread -
38) As for the unexpected ‘fortuitous’ sudden Twitter fans out there - I hope you will all stay tuned + mindful of all the data/facts, keep open mind that research data will often conflict, and keep a level mindset to not panic or incite fear. And to fellow scientists out there:
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39) ...I am here ready to retweet if you ever have good informative insights and thoughtful in presenting them.
@trvrb and@MackayIM and@mlipsitch (inventor of the modern R0 formula) are great follows. I don’t know everything, I’m just a “general Harvard epidemiologist”
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40) I have a doctorate in Epidemiology (and an in nutrition) and taught courses on it at Harvard+elsewhere, but I’m not an infectious disease/virologist. However, nobody’s a genius who knows everything in the world-we need the whole scientific community’s hands on deck as a team.
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41) In a time of global
crisis like this, the whole world’s better off if we work together to communicate our expertise to the wider public. Let’s stop infighting, and instead focus on the greater good to educate the public. Thanks everyone. Now let’s do this
pic.twitter.com/mZeKmOlGMp
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42) p.s. it seems the thread got disjointed. Here is the link to the earlier post with a good article debunking the ‘uncanny HIV’ paper that has been retracted. https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1223417307369811968?s=21 …https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1223417307369811968 …
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End of conversation
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above), it encodes the virus envelop spike protein of the
host tissue.