> WIV collected the viruses from 800mi away which are the known closest relative — but missing the Furin cleavage site. RaTG13 is not the known closest relativ

> WIV collected the viruses from 800mi away which are the known closest relative — but missing the Furin cleavage site. RaTG13 is not the known closest relative any more and the spike is considerably different and probably doesn't bind to human ACE2. There's also no known evidence that they ever had 'live' RaTG13 or any other SARS-CoV-2-like virus in the lab. > And as I mentioned before, the only one to asses with moderate rather than low confidence is in that group of 3. When assessing such matters, we need to consider not just the number of analyses, but their relative confidence in their conclusions. And it seems whatever evidence they have isn't sufficient to convince any of the other intelligence agencies, and they haven't disclosed what that evidence is. So because one intelligence agency says "trust me bro" while the others are unconvinced that makes the one with the strongest opinion clearly the correct one. That isn't a good way to judge truth. > There was more than one — and they changed their opinion after a phone call, not based on later evidence. Feel free to present the evidence you believe changed his mind. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/14/science/covid-lab-leak-fauci-kristian-andersen.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/14/science/covid-lab-leak-fa... "I cautioned in that same email that we would need to look at the question much more closely and that our opinions could change within a few days based on new data and analyses — which they did." "The features in SARS-CoV-2 that initially suggested possible engineering were identified in related coronaviruses, meaning that features that initially looked unusual to us weren’t." "Many of these analyses were completed in a matter of days, while we worked around the clock, which allowed us to reject our preliminary hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 might have been engineered, while other “lab”-based scenarios were still on the table." "Yet more extensive analyses, significant additional data and thorough investigations to compare genomic diversity more broadly across coronaviruses led to the peer-reviewed study published in Nature Medicine. For example, we looked at data from coronaviruses found in other species, such as bats and pangolins, which demonstrated that the features that first appeared unique to SARS-CoV-2 were in fact found in other, related viruses." "Overall, this is a textbook example of the scientific method where a preliminary hypothesis is rejected in favor of a competing hypothesis after more data become available and analyses are completed." > later receiving grants from a related organization "Virologist accepts grants to continue research" is not exactly a ground-breaking headline.