It evolved so fast that it was already all nicely formed in the first draft of PO of the 4 Feb 2020, 3 days after Fauci’s conf call.

I have zero interest in these US politics. My point is about giving the impression that there was a slow change of mind over months to the publication of PO. No. The conclusion was written first (4 Feb), the authors were still arguing on 11 Feb, and final version was on 17 Feb

8/9 I am not sure if Daszak disclosed any conflict of interest at the time (as was required during that first virtual meeting). Or if Andersen disclosed that he had already made his mind on the origins on the 4 Feb despite the letter sent by NASEM to the OSTP on the 6 Feb.

4/9 On 6 Feb 2020, NASEM answered the OSTP letter after consulting with Andersen, Daszak, Gronvall, Bedford, Inglesby, Baric, Perlman and Chakravarti. The message was that additional genomic data was necessary to make sense of the origins. @Roger Pielke Jr.🇺🇦

2/9 The first draft of the Proximal Origin was sent to Farrar on 4 Feb. I missed that the day before the Office of Science and Technology (OSTP, White House) sent a letter to the National Academy of Science (NASEM) about the Indian HIV inserts paper and asking for expert advice.

A tight schedule within 18 days of the Fauci/Farrar call, with: - Proximal Origin dealing mostly with the man-made virus angle (while having internal divisions as to a possible accident with a natural virus), - then Daszak quickly shutting down the accident avenue in Lancet.

16/ At this stage, it is time to look at the genesis of the Proximal Origins in the context of the pangolins papers of that time. Proximal Origin uses the pangolin findings to try to make its case in EACH ONE of the 3 hypothese its considers, despite some strong limitations: