Flo Débarre
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flodebarre.bsky.social
Flo Débarre
@flodebarre.bsky.social
11K followers 2.3K following 1.1K posts
Personal account
Evolutionary biologist, senior scientist at CNRS/Sorbonne Université
Interests: origins and control of infectious diseases and conspiracy theories; diversity in science; scientific publishing
https://www.normalesup.org/~fdebarre/
EN & FR
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flodebarre.bsky.social
From the same account. The bottom-left image was posted in Jan 2023, the top-right image (BBC) is from March 2025. The flowers are in the same position, some have been edited.
Maybe more photoshopping than AI?

www.istockphoto.com/fr/portfolio...
screenshot of the linked website, showing two photos that are almost the same: same flowers, same tree in the background. But not all flowers are the same, and one photo has butterflies
November 22, 2025 at 8:44 AM
flodebarre.bsky.social
Here is the source:
www.istockphoto.com/fr/portfolio...

Sorry it's in French; the bottom-right text says the content is guaranteed to be AI-free.
The picture was uploaded in March 2025

[reposted to correct the typo]
screenshot of the page at the link pictures of butterflies in a meadow text: Notre bibliothèque créative ne comprend aucun contenu généré par l’IA. Choisir vos visuels en toute confiance : notre bibliothèque créative ne comprend aucun contenu généré par IA. Vos recherches vous permettent de trouver uniquement des visuels sécurisés, fiables et de haute qualité.
November 22, 2025 at 8:36 AM
flodebarre.bsky.social
FYI, they got the Sweden claim from a website that is linked in their piece (but is currently down): www.mortality.watch

See e.g. this thread for a discussion of whether the claim is supported bsky.app/profile/adam...
screenshot “Sweden, without lockdown or school closures, was the best in the world at protecting human life during the Covid pandemic. It had the lowest level of age-adjusted, all-cause excess deaths in the world between March 2020 and December 2024.” Faust: This is unsupported. I don’t know where they are getting this claim from.
November 16, 2025 at 9:46 PM
flodebarre.bsky.social
But Sweden! Say NIH director J Bhattacharya and his deputy director MJ Memoli in City Journal.

Really? Checking their source, you see that it only holds if you extend the comparison to irrelevant years -- no lockdowns in 2024!

oped: archive.ph/HKcS0
graph: www.mortality.watch/explorer/?c=...
Sweden, without lockdown or school closures, was the best in the world at protecting human life during the Covid pandemic. It had the lowest level of age-adjusted, all-cause excess deaths in the world between March 2020 and December 2024. Sweden succeeded in part because its people are relatively metabolically healthy. By contrast, the U.S. chronic-disease crisis all but guaranteed that Americans would have one of the highest mortality rates in the world. screenshot of the graph they used as source, showing cumulative excess deaths in the US, Sweden, New Zealand. NZ has fewer deaths than Sweden until around January 2024
November 14, 2025 at 3:34 PM
flodebarre.bsky.social
An additional detail that I have not seen elsewhere

source: bsky.app/profile/ncco...
Screenshot of linked post: @nccomfort.bsky.so... • 16h In 1994, Matt Ridley introduced him to The Bell Curve. It married genetic determinism about IQ, which Watson believed 100%, with racism, which he didn't interrogate. Had he read the papers cited in TBC, he would have seen that it was pseudoscience. This he did not do. 17/n
November 9, 2025 at 4:28 PM
flodebarre.bsky.social
According to @altmetric.com, the original paper was only shared on X. The usual #covidorigin leakers cheered, completely uncritically...
How many of them actually read the paper? ▫️5/6

link.altmetric.com/details/1825...
screenshot of altmetric website: Mentioned by 47 X users
November 3, 2025 at 8:30 PM
flodebarre.bsky.social
The two references provided by the authors to justify that cases were reported in the summer 2019 are incorrectly cited.

Did the authors find other reports? They don't provide evidence in the article, and their data are only available if you... pay. ▫️4/6

@sortee.bsky.social
screenshot: Data availability The data used in this study were primarily from open sources. However, further processed datasets from EPIWATCH@ can be accessed through a subscription.
November 3, 2025 at 8:30 PM
flodebarre.bsky.social
Avec l'image et le son
youtu.be/iyBXfmrVhrk?...

(Merci aux personnes qui ont préservé ce moment d'histoire sur Youtube. La vidéo originale n'est apparemment plus disponible sur elysee[.]fr; le lien d'origine se retrouve dans un article @arretsurimages.net www.arretsurimages.net/articles/la-...)
November 1, 2025 at 11:36 AM
flodebarre.bsky.social
Leakers will likely find an explanation that involves even more people lying. As is typicaly in conspiracy theories, contradictory documents and data are interpreted as the evidence of further lies ▫️7/8

www.scientificamerican.com/article/read...
screenshot of linked text. * = highlighted In normal scientific inquiry, as evidence emerges, the remaining space for plausible hypotheses narrows. Some facets continue to be supported, and others are contradicted and eventually precluded altogether. Some of the strongest advocates for a lab origin for SARS-CoV-2 changed their views as they learned more. Baltimore, for instance, withdrew his “smoking gun” comment when challenged by additional evidence, conceding that a natural origin was also possible. Revising or rejecting failed hypotheses in light of refuting evidence is central to the scientific process. *Not so with conspiracy theories and pseudoscience. One of their hallmarks is that they are self-sealing: as more evidence against the conspiracy emerges, adherents keep the theory alive by dismissing contrary evidence as further proof of the conspiracy, creating an ever more elaborate and complicated theory.*
October 31, 2025 at 8:50 PM
flodebarre.bsky.social
In Leaker world, the FCS was hidden by WIV as part of a cover-up.

How will folks explain that Ralph Baric also missed it, especially in slides to some element(s?) of the US intelligence community?▫️6/8

(🖼️: transcript from @antonioregalado.bsky.social's podcast podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/o...)
screenshot of the Curious Coincidences podcast (furin is misspelled in the transcript) Origins Curious Coincidence — Season 1, Episode 1 Origins - Transcript But what caught Chan's attention is that the lab in Wuhan didn't mention the furan site. And that, she thinks, is strange. In fact, Alina's signature comment on Twitter is to point out that if you discovered a unicorn, it would be weird not to mention that it had a horn. The Wuhan Institute was among the first to sequence the genome of the new germ in 2020, and it published the details in the scientific journal Nature. But the information about the furan cleavage site wasn't in that paper. Sometimes the covering up produces more evidence than the actual accident itself. So one of the things that really stood out to me was the omission of the furan cleavage site. They missed that functional feature. They characterized everything else extremely carefully. They even compared it directly to SARS-1 in the spike. They pulled out all these other tiny inserts and talked about them, and they missed this huge functional site in the middle of the virus. So there are many of these things that you could find a relatively innocent explanation for if you tried really hard. But just in summation of all of these things, it makes me think that people know more than they're letting on. But was the omission of the furan cleavage site really a suspicious sign of a cover-up? The Wuhan Institute of Virology told other scientists that no, they just missed it, and that's plausible too. With those kinds of insinuations, Chan has definitely made some enemies
October 31, 2025 at 8:50 PM
flodebarre.bsky.social
In the Defuse grant proposal, the part about cleavage sites was meant to be done in the Baric lab in North Carolina.

If Baric himself initially missed the FCS, it's not that much of a surprise that others with less expertise on molecular details did too. ▫️5/8

oversight.house.gov/wp-content/u...
Screenshot of the linked transcript: 4746 Yeah, so it's -- there's a lot of redundancy 4747 in proteases that cleave the coronavirus spike. So to start 4748 off, the idea of manipulating the protease was clearly mine. 4749 No question.
October 31, 2025 at 8:50 PM
flodebarre.bsky.social
(The link to the video where @tetherin.bsky.social explains that he asked WIV scientists about the absence of the FCS was not saved in the archive link, so here it is:
youtu.be/Za9kLYRM6Hg?... ) ▫️4/8
October 31, 2025 at 8:50 PM
flodebarre.bsky.social
Maybe an even more inside baseball in these documents -- but it's key:

No mention of furin cleavage site in the slides...

which matches a remark made by Peter Daszak in an email to David Morens in May 2021, made public by FOIA ▫️1/8
#CovidOrigin

www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/u...
illustration: view of all the pages of the linked document Screenshot of an email (from NIH FOIA, USRTK NIH 57707 9.22.25 Production). Highlighted: "Likewise, Ralph Baric missed it when he first looked at the SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences in early Jan"
October 31, 2025 at 8:50 PM
flodebarre.bsky.social
Les activistes sur l'origine de la pandémie de Covid ont réussi à faire croire à une large fraction de la population que tous les maux du monde et toutes les expériences dangereuses sont liés à des virus – peste et anthrax sont causés par des bactéries
#revuedepresse
www.lemonde.fr/sciences/art...
Déjà dans les années 1980, des chercheurs soviétiques avaient tenté de modifier les virus de la peste et de l’anthrax pour les rendre résistants aux antibiotiques.
October 28, 2025 at 7:29 PM
flodebarre.bsky.social
You made me try it. Not sure about the value of the index, but at least the progress bars are fun
screenshot of a progress bar showing cat emoticons
October 26, 2025 at 5:52 PM
flodebarre.bsky.social
So it turns out that Tofel used the same arguments and even the same words ("known unknown", "unknowable") in 2021 about... UFOs!

dicktofel.substack.com/p/the-lab-le...
The Lab Leak Theory, UFO’s and Known Unknowns Journalism needs to up its game on stories where we don't (yet) know the answer. RICHARD J. TOFEL JUN 17, 2021 Journalism, at its heart, is about reporting facts-- at its best, uncovering facts readers hadn’t previously known. Conversely, journalism is at a disadvantage, and sometimes at its worst, when the facts are unknowable. I have been starkly reminded of this recently by two crucially important stories that may seem quite unlike each other, but that I think have this important lesson in common—the COVID “lab leak” and UFO controversies.
October 23, 2025 at 12:15 PM
flodebarre.bsky.social
Comme un air de déjà vu après les errements du DOGE...
Plusieurs employés à des postes clés des CDC ont été licenciés par erreur vendredi soir, et sont réintégrés

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/h... #revuedepresse
The Trump administration on Saturday raced to rescind layoffs of hundreds of scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who were mistakenly fired on Friday night in what appeared to be a substantial procedural lapse. Among those wrongly dismissed were the top two leaders of the federal measles response team, those working to contain Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, members of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, and the team that assembles the C.D.C.'s vaunted scientific journal, The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
October 12, 2025 at 6:17 AM
flodebarre.bsky.social
Beyond recombinants, "Frankenstein" and derivatives were also used to mean scary.
Omicron was "Frankensteinish" in late 2021, while "Frankenvirus" was used in a 2020 article speculating about recombination with other viruses -- again, to convey fear ▫️6/7
web.musc.edu/about/news-c...
screenshot of linked website ‘Almost Frankensteinish’ Omicron variant worrying, but don’t panic, scientist says Helen Adams November 29, 2021 « Frankenvirus » : et si le coronavirus se combinait avec un autre virus ? Article de Céline Deluzarche publié le 18/10/2020 Le SARS-CoV-2 est probablement issu de la combinaison de deux coronavirus qui ont infecté le même animal. Et si ce processus se répétait chez l'humain et aboutissait à une nouvelle pandémie ? Une hypothèse peu probable, mais pas invraisemblable. De nombreuses craintes ont émergé ces derniers mois sur une possible mutation du SARS-CoV-2, qui l'aurait rendu plus virulent ou plus infectieux. Mais c'est une autre menace qui inquiète aujourd'hui certains chercheurs : celui d'une recombinaison du virus avec un autre coronavirus commun, ce qui donnerait un nouvel hybride et une nouvelle pandémie. Source: https://www.futura-sciences.com/sante/actualites/coronavirus-sars-cov-2-deux-variants-dangereux-sont-combines-nouveau-virus-83001/ (sorry for putting it here, there was no space left in the post for a second URL)
October 6, 2025 at 4:09 PM
flodebarre.bsky.social
But uses of "Frankenstein" for recombinants largely predate XFG. The earliest I found is from March 2022 on @npr.org about a Delta x Omicron recombinant
(keep this one in mind for another thread another day) ▫️5/7

www.npr.org/sections/goa...
screenshot of linked website Delta and omicron met up inside 1 person and made the Frankenstein hybrid 'deltacron' March 23, 2022 4:34 PM ET Michaeleen Doucleff
October 6, 2025 at 4:09 PM
flodebarre.bsky.social
The name "Frankenstein" has been used several times to illustrate the concept of recombinant, including shortly before the Daily Mail article, in an article on the @gavi.org website (I do not know if this article was used as source by the DM). ▫️4/7
www.gavi.org/vaccineswork...
screenshot from linked website. “We started with mythological creatures (e.g., Orthrus, Kraken), then astronomical names (e.g., Eris, Pirola), and this time around we've used some terms from meteorology including the cloud types Nimbus and Stratus.” 3. These are Frankenstein variants, built from genetic recombination NB.1.8.1 has a tangled family tree. It is a hybrid virus, built from a process called recombination, where several viruses – all versions of the Omicron COVID variant -infect the same cell and swap genetic material. It is descended from XDV -- a hybrid of JN.1 and XDE (a hybrid of GW.5.1 and FL.13.4). [illustration]
October 6, 2025 at 4:09 PM
flodebarre.bsky.social
The July blip in the previous post seems to have been caused by an alarmist title by the Daily Mail -- as often, the DM is driving the news.

In the article, however, "Frankenstein" was not used as a variant name, but as a qualifier, because XFG is a recombinant... ▫️3/7
screenshot of Daily Mail article. Title: Covid alert! New 'super-contagious Frankenstein' variant has rocketed four-fold in just a month...experts warn it could be most infectious yet By JOHN ELY DEPUTY HEALTH EDITOR FOR MAILONLINE Published: 11:51 EDT, 3 July 2025 | Updated: 15:10 EDT, 3 July 2025 [...] Stratus—a descendent of the already super virulent Omicron—is what is known as a Frankenstein or 'recombinant' strain. This means it emerged when a person was infected with two Covid strains at once which then became a new hybrid variant. (Full text at https://archive.ph/t9jJJ)
October 6, 2025 at 4:09 PM
flodebarre.bsky.social
"Frankenstein" is currently used to refer to the XFG variant, which is a recombinant, as the "X" in its technical name indicates. The "Frankenstein" name is not official, and seems to be used only because other media also used it. But who started the trend? ▫️2/7
screenshot of Google Trends for "frankenstein variant" since June 2025. A blip in early July and then a sharp increase at the end of September. The map shows it's most used in France
October 6, 2025 at 4:09 PM
flodebarre.bsky.social
You may have seen the name "Frankenstein variant"; in France, it's been all over the news, but it's not an official name. Where does it come from?

A thread on various uses of the name "Frankenstein" in news articles during #Covid: ▫️1/7
illustration with Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's creature, and a SARS-CoV-2 virus
October 6, 2025 at 4:09 PM
flodebarre.bsky.social
This time, it seems to come from a July 2025 article in the Daily Mail, that may itself have used a mid-June article on the GAVI @gavi.org website, that used the name "Frankenstein" to refer to the fact that it is a recombinant.
www.gavi.org/vaccineswork...
cc @pasteur.fr @lindageddes.bsky.social
screenshot of the Daily Mail article Covid alert! New 'super-contagious Frankenstein' variant has rocketed four-fold in just a month...experts warn it could be most infectious yet READ MORE: WHO says it can't rule out Covid having come from a Chinese lab By JOHN ELY, DEPUTY HEALTH EDITOR [...] Stratus—a descendent of the already super virulent Omicron—is what is known as a Frankenstein or 'recombinant' strain. screenshot from CEPI website 3. These are Frankenstein variants, built from genetic recombination
October 6, 2025 at 2:08 PM
flodebarre.bsky.social
They can be found by clicking on the "🔰 Saved" item in the left menu
Screenshot of the phone app showing the menu
October 6, 2025 at 5:00 AM