GISAID, a widely used database where scientists deposit influenza and SARS-CoV-2 genomes, doubled down last month on a claim that has puzzled and infuriated some virologists for 3 years. In a statement about a set of controversial sequences from a Wuhan market that hint at the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, GISAID emphasized it was the first place to publicly share SARS-CoV-2 genomes, on 10 January 2020. That claim flies in the face of countless contemporaneous news and social media accounts, the memories of many researchers contacted by Science, and non-GISAID records. All indicate the first SARS-CoV-2 sequence was publicly shared through virological.org, an online forum, early on 11 January in Europe. It was submitted by Edward Holmes, an evolutionary biologist and virologist at the University of Sydney. Holmes received the sequence from Zhang Yong-Zhen, a virologist at Fudan University. GISAID, various sources suggest, didn't actually make its first genomes of the new coronavirus public until 12 January 2020.
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