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Yan's report makes 3 claims:
— Alina Chan (@Ayjchan) September 17, 2020
(1) SARS2 is similar to the Zhoushan viruses isolated and studied by Chinese military labs.
(2) The receptor binding motif of the spike was genetically manipulated.
(3) The infamous S1/S2 furin cleavage site (FCS) was artificially inserted.
GD pangolin CoV – the one virus with a SARS2-like receptor binding domain (RBD) – please see our preprint, which has been under editorial review for 16 weeks, but we think we can see the light at the end of the tunnel now… https://t.co/A5eCze8AEp
— Alina Chan (@Ayjchan) September 17, 2020
Thus, I would describe the claim that RaTG13 is fabricated and the claim that SARS2 is derived from the Zhoushan viruses (published in 2018) are gut speculations by Yan, who clearly believes that SARS2 is a product of gain of function research by the Chinese government.
— Alina Chan (@Ayjchan) September 17, 2020
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My thoughts about the Yan whistleblower report on SARS2 origins have been percolating over the past few very busy days. I'm ready to share them in this thread:
— Alina Chan (@Ayjchan) September 17, 2020
(1) why+how whistleblowers must be protected
(2) what the report gets right and what it gets wrong
In fact, Yan blew the whistle on 2 of the senior authors of that Nature paper – claiming that these experts knew about the human-to-human transmissibility of SARS2 but failed to relay this crucial information to the WHO in a timely manner. https://t.co/fVnoj5jhWu
— Alina Chan (@Ayjchan) September 17, 2020
The lab origins controversy started when Yan claimed that RaTG13, the closest related virus genome to SARS2, published by the WIV was fabricated, and that SARS2 was derived from SARS viruses from Zhoushan – one was successfully isolated in suckling rats. https://t.co/oiFRhuTLAm
— Alina Chan (@Ayjchan) September 17, 2020
Whistleblowers are extremely important people – for the health and sustainability of any organization or field. They're a rare type of people who will risk their lives and careers to make sure no more harm comes to other people… https://t.co/6olRwpc1vv
— Alina Chan (@Ayjchan) September 17, 2020
They never envisioned being in a workplace that would turn a blind eye to misconduct, knowingly endanger people's lives or well-being. Suddenly, they have to decide whether to say something and risk everything they've worked for, everything that's safe OR keep quiet and move on.
— Alina Chan (@Ayjchan) September 17, 2020
If there is one thing that this entire saga has made clear – it is that whistleblowers (as it pertains to SARS2) have no obvious safe route of sharing their information.
— Alina Chan (@Ayjchan) September 17, 2020
Seriously, who should a SARS2 origins whistleblower go to? Besides this anti-CCP billionaire + Bannon et al.?
The best approach to obtaining the truth from a whistleblower is to remove their dependency on their host/savior. Someone who they now have to rely on for security the rest of their life. Do people seriously think that this is not a consideration for whistleblowers?
— Alina Chan (@Ayjchan) September 17, 2020
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weehingthong 