critique 2, forwarding someone else’s discussion.https://twitter.com/zhihuachen/status/1409162687762911236 …
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Replying to @zhihuachen @zeynep
Zhihua Chen Retweeted Zhihua Chen
Last one, expansion on exonerating civets. And I will stop.https://twitter.com/zhihuachen/status/1408515985326456837?s=21 …
Zhihua Chen added,
Zhihua Chen @zhihuachenReplying to @zeynepIf we take out the civets, and consider direct bat-human transmission, doesn’t it mean that 19 years after SARS1, we still haven’t found out how the virus reached Guangzhou from the Yunnan caves over 1000 kilometers away - exactly the same situation we are in right now with1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @zhihuachen
OK much easier to follow, thank you. Answers in a bit.
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Replying to @zeynep @zhihuachen
Last one is easiest. Bat-to-human plausibility makes the search for the intermediary animal less necessary as proof of lack of lab involvement. But makes bats at labs a higher risk factor. Also people living near bats. So it’s not leaning in a single direction, weight-wise.
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Replying to @zeynep
This one is hardest for me, and it’s not a critique of your piece. :) I just kept going back to the SARS1 comparison thinking how the evidentiary burden is not demanded of SARS1 since if the civets were victims then we really haven’t tracked down how SARS1 reached Guangdong.
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Replying to @zhihuachen
I point out the SARS1 distance to origin very high in the piece. I think the potential questions around civets don't cut in any single direction, but just highlights that bat coronaviruses may well be "poised" to jump to humans, as per a lot of Shi/Baric research, actually.
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Replying to @zeynep
Isn’t it worth exploring how sars1 emerged in Guangdong far away from Yunnan without the aid of intermediate species? Shouldn’t much of the processes/foundation involved in sars1’s emergence remain active for the emergence of SARS-cov-2,
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Replying to @zhihuachen @zeynep
… and therefore its understanding helpful for us to assess the relative possibilities of nature vs research activities? Thanks for responding by the way.
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Replying to @zhihuachen
Re-interpreting SARS opens up plausible paths—not an argument either way. I think
@VirusesImmunity has this right. She said “there’s so little evidence for either of these things, that it’s almost like a tossup." I think that's the right epistemic humility given lack of evidence.1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Replying to @zeynep @VirusesImmunity
Agreeing with epistemic humility. But I think you would agree that it wouldn’t require us to be incurious about how sars1 might’ve reached Guangzhou w/o the aid of civets, or WIV, while requiring us to be open to how sars-cov-2 might’ve reached Wuhan w/o aid of civets but w WIV.
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As I write in the article, humans are clearly a lot more mobile and I explicitly say that for this case as well. If you read my article as not taking a side by laying out the plausible paths (which is what it is) you can see that it's explicit about that. Humans are mobile!pic.twitter.com/qYT3xzJMuc
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