Gilles Demaneuf

  • @janeqiuchina @scotub It is not a good point but a misrepresentation, @janeqiuchina

    MIGHT in English is for definitely less than 50% - typically 30% or less.

    High/good probability, especially with that 大, put it clearly above 50% to be the most plausible cause. 60% is a good benchmark.

    @janeqiuchina @scotub A correction is needed as you switched the probabilities in Zhong Nan Shan's statement.
    This is unacceptable - a basic no-no in journalism.

    And no, his overall conclusion about it being still a mystery is due as he says to the different opinion of ‘local clinicians’.

    @janeqiuchina @scotub What ZNS says is clear:

    - his diagnosis was good/high probability of viral infection (you have his wording!)
    - local clinicians a the time, and later Shi, instead favored a fungal infection.
    - so it is OVERALL still a mystery.

    @janeqiuchina @scotub And you also miss the fact that ZNS has treated more SARS-1 patients than any other doctor in China.
    His diagnosis matters.

    Also you miss the fact that all the conclusions at the end of the thesis were followed and proven correct.
    His opinion clearly mattered!

    @janeqiuchina @scotub Also I find it disingenuous that you never mention the gag orders that cover any research and statement by anybody in China regarding the possible origins.

    You wrote an article as if you interviewed in Belgium or Brazil, not in a country with CDC and State Council gag orders.

    @janeqiuchina @scotub The minimum as a journalist would have been to mention this.

    Don't necessarily bring in up in the interview (maybe a bad idea), but at least find a way to mention that fact in your article to give some much needed context and let the reader decide.

    @janeqiuchina @scotub @threadreaderapp compile

  • Thanks @janeqiuchina, but before blaming @MonaRahalkar for a supposed language issue, why don't you you look at your very own language problem?

    Per your tweet:
    'Zhong suspected the miners MIGHT have had virus infection', as per 病毒性可能性大.

    Really?

    可能性大 is 'high probability'.
    大 ('big') is the key character.

    病毒性可能性大 -> 'HIGH PROBABILITY of viral infection'
    - 'High probability' is around 60-70%.
    - MIGHT in English is around 30%.

    I do hope that you understand the difference.

    So please apologize to @MonaRahalkar.

    Then please contact the MIT Technological Review to get them to correct your article in the same way.

    He did not think 'that a virus MIGHT be involved'.
    He believed with HIGH PROBABILITY that a virus was involved.

    By the way I already highlighted the wording and the contradictions between ZNS diagnosis and the local diagnosis, in this piece a year and a half ago:

    gillesdemaneuf.medium.com/wiv-ecohealth-…

    I also brought attention to the very end of the MS Thesis, which for some reason you did not mention.

    Zhong Nan Shan was 100% spot on:

    - Yes, the high probability of viral infection was a key contradiction with a previous paper by Shi.

    - Yes, Shi then quickly went and sampled the Mojiang mine - taking the clue.

    - Yes, EcoHealth Alliance quickly did some bat feces studies.

    Instead of discussing Shi's wardrobe, maybe you could have gone and ask Daszak what motivated EHA to quickly write a paper published in 2013 that showed a potential risk of infection from BatCoV in Thai bat guano, using frozen DARPA samples from 2006/7?

    Then you could also have asked Daszak if he knew by any chance of the Mojiang mine accident when they wrote that paper.

    (Accident never disclosed to international authorities against reporting obligations, despite being recorded by the Kunming CDC).

    Also, please ask the MIT Technical Review to correct your pulled-from-thin-air February date for the main DB of the WIV being taken offline.

    As you know well, the main DB went offline on the 12th Sep 2019.

    And by the way your text about the public/private section of the DB is neither a confidence by Shi or a new piece of information.

    DRASTIC has been saying so for ages and it was confirmed by Yuan Zhiming 6 months ago

    See:
    bit.ly/3nF01M9

    And:

    Last, maybe you could ask Shi if the WIV needs some IT help to put the DB back online

    I can send them a hard drive if they cannot find one, so that they can share it with the international community

    We don't want these 'technical issues' to get in the way of science, do we?

  • On OSINT, risk factors and competing origin hypotheses

    When you are in a hole, @stuartjdneil, don't keep digging:

    DRASTIC was looking at both dates (8 and 16th Dec), reflecting the difficulty of analysis.

    Even before Worobey published his piece, which reused sources investigated by DRASTIC, I had put the two dates on the DRASTIC map I share, with the 16 first and the still official (8 Dec) behind, as 16(8?) Dec:

    So again, you are proven totally wrong.
    bit.ly/3q5DoSD

    To be clear:

    - @MichaelWorobey reused sources already investigated by DRASTIC.
    - DRASTIC members had already mentioned the difficulty with the official date, and the 16 was clearly already shown on the map.
    - Worobey got the dental records very wrong

    Still @MichaelWorobey - to his credit - did not actually state that the onset date of Chen was definitely the 16th Dec.

    He left it open, with a lot of 'ifs' and still mentioning that Mr Chen suspected that he may have gotten sick during his hospital visit on the 8th.

    Also @MichaelWorobey introduced a problematic statement about a 'travel North of Huanan market shortly before his symptoms began'.

    This sentence insinuates that he could have been infected there by getting through or close to the market.

    This is wrong and should be corrected.

    He actually went to a very common attraction in the mountains 90 km by road north of Wuhan - absolutely nothing to do with the market.

    All reference to the market in that context is misleading.
    @thackerpd

  • Bayesian Analysis