English transcript available below the original text

Disse funnene passer mildt sagt ikke så godt med fortellingene til Sigrid Bratlie om covid‑pandemiens opphav.. @langsiktsenter.bsky.social Med mindre koronavirusene i jungelen i Brasil har satt inn et "furin cleavage site" på pur f som del av en stor konspirasjon www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

"SARS-CoV-2 is too well-adapted to humans [hence, insert your favorite conspiracy theory]". That was never right because, for one, SARS-CoV-2 is a pandemic virus so it necessarily had to be "well-adapted". Now, a new study shows the same is true for BANAL-236 - a related virus isolated from bats.

My interview with Dr. Susan Monarez, former CDC Director, who was fired for doing her job, standing up for public health and science. Learn about her resilience and optimism. erictopol.substack.com/p/dr-susan-m...

Great post. Enough people with minimal background try to over-interpret this that I thought it might help make good faith (but not inside baseball) interpretation easier to quickly annotate your graph with more general explanatory language.

A new bat coronavirus discovered in Brazil confirms what we already knew: nature handles furin cleavage sites just fine. Lab leakers, don’t worry, you've got the track record to pivot seamlessly to a career in creative fiction writing. Quick update on the news: open.substack.com/pub/protagon...

This is 💯 Origin inside baseball, but I've always been perplexed by Baric's claim that our "market" studies could not be correct because, according to him, the molecular timing of the pandemic in in October, not later. That was always wrong, but where did he get this October date from? Well... 🧵👇

🧵Remember the preprint claiming SARS-CoV-2 has a "synthetic fingerprint"? It said a restriction map was "extremely unlikely to have arisen by random evolution.” I took its claims seriously. The "synthetic fingerprint" hypothesis collapses. My new preprint explains why. arxiv.org/abs/2510.23833

We’ve identified a highly divergent betacoronavirus from South American bat that encodes a functional furin cleavage site. Another fascinating reminder of how diverse coronavirus evolution is in wildlife reservoirs. #Virology #VirusEvolution #Bats #Coronavirus www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Had an entertaining discussion with Chris and Matt about my book, gurus, media manipulators and how it all fits with the current attacks on science and scientists by the MAGA movement and beyond. www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrsV...

Full conversation here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H55...

All academic institutions will soon realize we are in this together, facing an autocratic ruler who wants to destroy academia, science, and public health (together with media and courts - pick up a history book). There is only one solution - stand up, speak up, and, critically, collective action.

A third of the way through Lab Leak Fever by Philipp Markolin. Fascinating look into the disinformation network amplified by social media and politicians that has put so much strain on hard working researchers, scientists and health professionals. @philippmarkolin.bsky.social

I’ve been waiting for this book, and it did not disappoint. Fantastic read — highly recommended!! www.lab-leak-fever.com

Insignificant as it is, my work was misrepresented by this DOE ‘report’.

It is endlessly hilarious to me that the 5 denier scientists they are able to dig up for this ... are the same 5 denier scientists they were able to dig up 10 years ago, and 20 years ago. One might ask why no new scientists are joining this faction. Must be the global conspiracy.

Our research has been engulfed by an endless torrent of lab leak conspiracy theories about the origin of the pandemic - even as the evidence for zoonosis has only grown stronger. This fuels anti-science agendas and erodes public trust. Now, we respond 👇 theconversation.com/how-conspira...

This interview from @debunk-the-funk.bsky.social of @peterdaszak.bsky.social is essential viewing. Conspiracy theorizing about a COVID lab leak is creating dangerous conditions for scientists. But misinformers spread bullshit with reckless abandon. It’s sickening. youtu.be/XTGM4u-l_YY?...

Instead of endless conspiracy theories it's better to focus on the evidence of this Q instead. Three 🌟 recent lay-resources 👇 @debunk-the-funk.bsky.social youtu.be/eTlur4YIAo0?... @gidmk.bsky.social gidmk.substack.com/p/pandemic-r... @michaelhobbes.bsky.social podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/b...

Very nice video from Dr. Wilson calmly and factually laying out some of the key points on the origin of SARS-CoV-2. featuring some new interviews with @peterdaszak.bsky.social as well

It's worth looking at how far the lab leak conspiracy theory has gotten - here, Jeff Sachs👇 1️⃣ Came from lab ↩️ 2️⃣ It was engineered ↩️ 3️⃣ US-based technology ↩️ 4️⃣ US-made (UNC) and tested in China (🦇) ↩️ 5️⃣ Covered up by Biden Admin, ICs, Fauci, scientists ("inside job") All, completely made up w. 0️⃣ data

What has always irritated me about this debate - and what I discuss in this piece - is how the lab leak has never had a shred of evidence supporting it. People are using the same arguments today that they were in 2020. Meanwhile, zoonosis has only gotten more likely over time.

Sviktende vitenskaps­journalistikk "Likevel trakk flere bokanmeldelser frem Bratlies vitenskapelige analyse som «solid». Dette vitner om lavt kunnskapsnivå og sviktende kildekritikk i redaksjonene."

SAGO Report is out: 1️⃣ No new data in report 2️⃣ Not bioweapon, man-made, or engineered 3️⃣ All scientific evidence points to zoonosis 4️⃣ No evidence for lab leak 5️⃣ New evidence could swing the conclusion In other words, what we concluded in April, 2020. Five years later. share.google/4I8ac1DJMZOM...

Op ed (in Norwegian): Why the lab leak theory still got so much attention. www.khrono.no/hvorfor-far-... @kgandersen.bsky.social @angelarasmussen.bsky.social

@karobra.bsky.social bra jobba på dax18 i kveld 👏

Jesse Bloom invented a story according to which sequence data had been deliberately removed to hide an origin of SARS-CoV-2 pre-dating the Huanan market outbreak. He omitted critical contradictory information to manufacture his narrative, and misled his readers. ▫️4/4

A critical review of "The mystery of Wuhan - The hunt for the origin of the covid pandemic" by Sigrid Bratlie tjomlid.com/a-critical-r...

En kritisk anmeldelse av "Mysteriet i Wuhan - Jakten på covid-pandemiens opphav" av Sigrid Bratlie tjomlid.com/en-kritisk-a...

Science deniers are known to directly go to the press with their flawed papers (or paper-style op-eds, in this case) to circumvent peer review. When the Viscount Ridley goes to his house outlet, The Telegraph; it is another indication that this is about pushing a self-serving and political agenda.

New interview out re. our work to understand how & why coronaviruses emerge. New info on WHO joint study, EcoHealth, DARPA DEFUSE, biosafety at WIV etc. Part 1 here w/ more coming soon… www.wsws.org/en/articles/...

More evidence for wildlife market origins popping up all the time, too bsky.app/profile/zach...

Do you notice the language? They are investigating "the cover-up of the origin" of SARS-CoV-2. Not the origin, the cover-up of the origin. (To cover-up something, this something needs to have happened, and you need to be aware of it. There is zero evidence it is the case.)

The Nation was spoon-fed documents from a bad-faith Republican House committee and covered them as if they were a scandal. The more I look into the lab leak the more shocked I am at how desperately the media tried to launder the theory into something respectable. www.thenation.com/article/poli...

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w... @flodebarre.bsky.social and @zachhensel.bsky.social fighting the good fight with more evidence from previously unreleased early SARs CoV-2 sequences that support Worobey et al and Pekar et al. You won’t find this reported in the US

Most recently, at first glance to me new genomes sampled from bats in Cambodia published yesterday are consistent with expectations for natural origins, but refraining from commenting on this in detail until the scientists who did the work weigh in! bsky.app/profile/siam...

The case for "lab leak" book "VIRAL" by Alina Chan and Matt Ridley leaned heavily on two facts in 2021: 1. The Wuhan Institute of Virology had sampled the virus most identical to SARS-CoV-2 2. SARS-CoV-2 lineage B, but not lineage A, was found in Huanan market By 2022, neither was true, so...

There have been many lab leak articles in the media recently, but none had actual new data In a new preprint, @zachhensel.bsky.social and I analyze early COVID-19 cases sequence data that have been overlooked so far. These new data continue to point to a natural origin ▫️1/7 doi.org/10.1101/2025...

An updated dataset of early SARS-CoV-2 diversity supports a wildlife market origin https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.05.647275v1

Short 🧵 on new developments in the scientific search for the #origins of COVID-19 ... and the parallel #lableak fan fiction universe. Some thoughts in the end. Let's start with some of the basics; there is a large body of scientific evidence: www.protagonist-science.com/p/bite-size-... 1/n

Grateful to scientists in Norway pointing out the massive asymmetry in the lab leak discourse that has been much-too prevalent in Norwegian (and much more extremely, U.S) media. It's time to focus on the science and leave the nonsense. [Part 1 translation in ALT - see next post for Part 2]

Another ivermectin-COVID-19 retraction, this one of a paper by Sabine Hazan and Peter McCullough et al. tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... It's the 12th for the drug, among the 467 retractions of COVID-19 papers on our list. retractionwatch.com/retracted-co...

This thread summarizes exactly how harmful baseless accusations are. Some of the scientists being accused of starting this Ebola epidemic died—not doing reckless virology but treating desperately ill patients. They lost their lives saving others. It’s not just wrong, it’s reprehensible.

To be clear, these accusations are directed against not just myself and U.S. colleagues, but, more sickeningly, against our Sierra Leonean friends and colleagues. Individuals who worked day and night trying to stop this outbreak, giving everything they had, saving the lives of many patients. 1/4

And this was also clear from an unpublished paper from 2018 which showed that the closest virus to SC2 at the WIV was RaTG13 (Ra4991). As this study was prior to the pandemic there was no reason to hide anything. But the progenitor of SC2 was not there because they never had it. End of.