Mary Wilson
Well-known member
Scientists suggest GISAID, a virus sequence database, is rewriting pandemic history
29 MAR 2023
2:35 PM
BY MARTIN ENSERINK
When GISAID, the widely used database for influenza and SARS-CoV-2 genomes, issued a statement last week about a set of controversial sequences from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, the release explained by way of background that the repository was “an essential contributor to global health” trusted by thousands of data contributors from 215 nations and territories. But GISAID also included a claim that has been puzzling and infuriating some virologists for 3 years: It was the place where the first SARS-CoV-2 genomes were publicly shared, on 10 January 2020.
That claim challenges contemporaneous news and social media accounts, the memories of many researchers contacted by Science, and non-GISAID records that all indicate the first sequence was made available through virological.org, a forum where scientists share and discuss information, early on 11 January in Europe, which was the evening of 10 January in the United States. It had been submitted by Edward Holmes, an evolutionary biologist and virologist at the University of Sydney who had received the sequence from Zhang Yong-Zhen, a virologist at Fudan University. GISAID, various information sources suggest, didn’t actually make its first genomes of the new coronavirus public until 12 January 2020.
“I am very surprised” at GISAID’s claims, Zhang wrote in an email to Science. “I could not understand why some people attempted to rewrite the history.” ...
https://www.science.org/content/article/dispute-simmers-over-who-first-shared-sars-cov-2-s-genome
29 MAR 2023
2:35 PM
BY MARTIN ENSERINK
When GISAID, the widely used database for influenza and SARS-CoV-2 genomes, issued a statement last week about a set of controversial sequences from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, the release explained by way of background that the repository was “an essential contributor to global health” trusted by thousands of data contributors from 215 nations and territories. But GISAID also included a claim that has been puzzling and infuriating some virologists for 3 years: It was the place where the first SARS-CoV-2 genomes were publicly shared, on 10 January 2020.
That claim challenges contemporaneous news and social media accounts, the memories of many researchers contacted by Science, and non-GISAID records that all indicate the first sequence was made available through virological.org, a forum where scientists share and discuss information, early on 11 January in Europe, which was the evening of 10 January in the United States. It had been submitted by Edward Holmes, an evolutionary biologist and virologist at the University of Sydney who had received the sequence from Zhang Yong-Zhen, a virologist at Fudan University. GISAID, various information sources suggest, didn’t actually make its first genomes of the new coronavirus public until 12 January 2020.
“I am very surprised” at GISAID’s claims, Zhang wrote in an email to Science. “I could not understand why some people attempted to rewrite the history.” ...
https://www.science.org/content/article/dispute-simmers-over-who-first-shared-sars-cov-2-s-genome
