# Publish-gate review record (docs/PUBLISH_GATE.md). status: pending | revisions_requested | passed | passed_with_open_items | grandfathered | failed (rounds: see docs/PUBLISH_GATE.md) subject: covid-origins status: passed_with_open_items checks: - check: 'conformance: no errors for this subject' result: pass detail: '' - check: headline present, 70-95 characters result: pass detail: 92 characters - check: headline claim is established/refuted at high confidence with a primary check, or status is draft result: pass detail: 'co-origin-not-established: searched_gap, provisional, anchor_checked secondary; headline_status draft' - check: headline_status is draft or review before the gate passes result: pass detail: draft - check: assessment present with question, answer, headline, text, basis, would_settle result: pass detail: '' - check: assessment has exactly three key_points result: pass detail: '3' - check: assessment states no percentage result: pass detail: '' - check: taxonomy entry (area and question types) result: FAIL detail: '' - check: every claim has statement_kind result: pass detail: '' - check: every searched gap names its next step result: pass detail: '' - check: sources manifest exists result: pass detail: '' - check: every source has an authenticity block result: pass detail: '' - check: log has entries result: pass detail: '' - check: timeline present (dates exist, so a timeline is required) result: pass detail: '' open_items: - build/taxonomy.yaml (owner-only) has no covid-origins entry; log L-08 proposes the line. Until the owner adds it, conformance warns. - Key point 3 of the assessment is 205 characters, over the 170-character guide (conformance warning). - The content of both Science errata was not read; the reduced Bayes factor for two introductions rests on two critics who disagree in the second digit (co-pekar-erratum-bf, provisional). The page must show this as a limit. - 'The FBI, DOE, CIA and BND positions, and the January 2025 CIA statement, are known only through the US June 2023 report or press reports (co-fbi-position, co-doe-position, co-cia-2025, co-bnd-2025, co-sq-agency-documents): secondary, provisional.' - 'In co-lab-origin-proven the ''Yes'' position lists the CIA among holders of a laboratory-origin lean; the anchor sources of that claim do not support it (ODNI 2023 puts the CIA as unable to determine) and the support is the press-reported January 2025 statement at co-cia-2025. Non-blocking: the assessment states the CIA position correctly.' - That the ODNI 2023 confidence levels are 'redacted' is read off blank space in the bullets rather than a redaction marking; I confirmed the gaps in the govinfo PDF with layout extraction. - co-origin-not-established and co-no-progenitor-public quote named documents in the anchor description but carry no `sources` list (optional under SCHEMA N25), so those quotes are not machine-resolvable to the manifest. - Several ew>=4 claims rest on a single document (co-odni-2023-agencies, co-odni-2023-wiv-findings, co-defuse-text-fcs-plan, co-who-china-early-cases). Each is a claim about what that document says, so this is appropriate rather than citation insularity, but it is a limit. - The House Oversight press release of 2 Dec 2024, which carries the wording refuted at co-fcs-not-found-in-nature, is not a manifest source; I opened it and the wording matches. Adding it to the manifest would close the gap. needs_manual_check: - 'quote not matched in stored sources (OCR noise possible): co-origin-not-established (match 0.66): "no confirmed animal source of SARS-CoV-2 has been identified..."' - 'quote not matched in stored sources (OCR noise possible): co-assessments-say-open (match 0.45): "all hypotheses remain on the table ... We have not yet found the sourc..."' - 'quote not matched in stored sources (OCR noise possible): co-assessments-say-open (match 0.00): "SAGO cannot conclude with certainty where and when this occurred..."' - 'quote not matched in stored sources (OCR noise possible): co-assessments-say-open (match 0.00): "is not in a position to rule this out as a possibility..."' - 'quote not matched in stored sources (OCR noise possible): co-zoonosis-hypothesis (match 0.44): "it is not conclusive that the HSM was where the virus first spilled ov..."' - 'quote not matched in stored sources (OCR noise possible): co-who-china-early-cases (match 0.37): "No firm conclusion therefore about the role of the Huanan market in th..."' - 'quote not matched in stored sources (OCR noise possible): co-who-china-early-cases (match 0.49): "no history of exposure to the Huanan market..."' - 'quote not matched in stored sources (OCR noise possible): co-who-china-early-cases (match 0.47): "A similar number of cases were associated with other markets..."' - 'quote not matched in stored sources (OCR noise possible): co-earliest-case-date-disputed (match 0.51): "The symptom onset date of the first patient identified was Dec 1, 2019..."' - 'quote not matched in stored sources (OCR noise possible): co-earliest-case-date-disputed (match 0.47): "No epidemiological link was found between the first patient and later ..."' - 'quote not matched in stored sources (OCR noise possible): co-earliest-case-date-disputed (match 0.40): "the earliest onset date reported to the NNDRS became ill on 8 December..."' - 'quote not matched in stored sources (OCR noise possible): co-earliest-case-date-disputed (match 0.44): "since the first patient was hospitalized on 12 December 2019..."' - 'quote not matched in stored sources (OCR noise possible): co-earliest-case-date-disputed (match 0.50): "around 18 November 2019 (23 October-8 December)..."' - 'quote not matched in stored sources (OCR noise possible): co-market-samples (match 0.47): "cannot be determined from the analyses available..."' - 'quote not matched in stored sources (OCR noise possible): co-market-animals-untested (match 0.51): "more detailed information on the sources, locations, sampling and test..."' - 'dates, names, patent or document numbers: verify each against the source' - every refuted claim names its target and rests on material or primary-text evidence (Rule 9) - no claim goes beyond what was read; anything not read is marked not read conformance_warnings: 2 established_or_refuted_without_primary_check: [] quotes: found_in_stored_sources: 23 not_found_in_stored_sources: 111 no_stored_source_to_check_against: 0 reviewed_by: independent review agent (Claude Opus 5.5), independent of the author; worked in worktree at head 94aa29f and edited only this file reviewed_on: '2026-10-06' notes: 'Mechanical pass: python3 build/tools/review_dig.py covid-origins --write. Every check passes except the taxonomy entry, which lives in build/taxonomy.yaml, an owner-only file the author correctly did not edit (log L-08 proposes the line). Conformance on the merge result (branch merged with origin/main, no commit): 0 errors overall; for this subject two warnings only (a key point is 205 characters, over the 170 guide; no taxonomy entry). Sources opened and read by me (not by the author''s report): Andersen et al. 2020 (Europe PMC full text: ''not a laboratory construct'', ''no laboratory-based scenario is plausible'', ''impossible to prove or disprove'', the HKU1 sentence); Coutard 2020 (OC43/MERS/HKU1 cleaved at S1/S2); Wu and Zhao 2021 (''occurred independently for multiple times''); Worobey et al. 2022 (the full ''emergence ... via the live wildlife trade'' sentence, 155 of 164 cases, 1% contour, medians 4.28 / 5.74 / 4.00 / 16.11 km, p=0.029); Pekar et al. 2022 (BF 61.6 and 60.0, 787 genomes, 18 Nov 2019 (23 Oct-8 Dec), the 10 December seafood vendor with no published genome); Huang et al. 2020 (1 Dec onset, no epidemiological link); Wu et al. 2020 (hospitalised 12 Dec 2019); Liu et al. 2023 (publisher HTML: 923 and 457 samples, 188 animals / 18 species, 74 = 70 + 4, 87.5% (56/64) West Zone, 134/678 shops, three isolates with Ct<30, ''cannot be determined from the analyses available'', ''cannot yet be ruled out'', note added in proof); Crits-Christoph 2024; Temmam 2022 (96.8% BANAL-52, 96.1% RaTG13, no furin site); Chan and Zhan 2022 (both the ''no known sarbecovirus'' and the ''consistent with natural evolution'' sentences); GenBank MN996532.1 (submitted 27-JAN-2020, collection 24-Jul-2013, replaced 13 Oct 2020); ODNI 2021 unclassified summary and Updated Assessment (stored copies: four elements and the NIC at low confidence, one element at moderate confidence, three unable to coalesce, ''no confirmed animal source'', the genetic-engineering line); ODNI June 2023 (stored copy and the govinfo PDF, read with layout: the three agency bullets, ''no indication ... nor any direct evidence'', 96.2 / 96.8 / above 99 percent, BSL-2 as of January 2019, ''probably did not use adequate biosafety precautions'', ''consistent with but not diagnostic'', the non-respiratory hospitalisation, ''does not address the merits''); WHO-China joint report (6 Apr 2021 PDF: 174 = 100 + 74, earliest onset 8 Dec with no Huanan exposure, 55.4 / 28.0 / 22.6 / 4.8 / 44.6 percent of 168, ''a similar number of cases were associated with other markets'', ''No firm conclusion therefore ...'', the Likert scale and ''extremely unlikely'', the laboratory-representative statements, the 1 Dec / 26 Dec patient, the case definition until mid-January 2020); WHO Director-General''s remarks of 30 Mar 2021 (all four quoted passages); SAGO 2025 (the weight-of-evidence sentence, ''cannot conclude with certainty'', ''not in a position to rule this out'', ''did not have access to original raw data'', ''no evidence has been presented, other than speculation'', ''not conclusive that the HSM was where the virus first spilled over'', ''this has been refused'', the two sentences on the US reports and the House majority); SAGO news item of 27 Jun 2025; House SSCP majority report (govinfo PDF: the finding heading, ''weight of the evidence increasingly supports'', ''could have created and released'', ''initially hid the most dangerous aspect'', and that the ''single introduction'' point is sourced to a quoted commentator); House SSCP Democrats'' report (''largely circumstantial but cannot be dismissed out of hand'', ''impossible to draw any conclusions without reviewing additional lab records from WIV'', the two section headings); Senate HELP minority staff report (''not intended to be dispositive''); ASM statement of 28 Oct 2022; DEFUSE main volume (Internet Archive OCR: USD 14,209,245, the proteolytic/furin cleavage-site sentences, the human-specific cleavage-site sentence, cover letter 24 March and form field 3/27/18); Baric transcribed interview (Senate PDF: "We''ve never dropped a furin cleavage site into a coronavirus like that"); HHS stored records (suspension effective 15 May 2024, EHA ineligible through 14 May 2029, Daszak notice of 21 May 2024 and ineligible through 20 May 2029, the WIV 17 Jul 2023 suspension and 19 Sep 2023 ten-year debarment in the ARM); House Oversight debarment release; State Department fact sheet of 15 Jan 2021 (stored copy: the ''reason to believe'' sentence); White House page (stored copy and the live page: ''A lab-related incident involving gain-of-function research is the most likely origin of COVID-19'', the five numbered items, metadata datePublished 2025-04-18 and dateModified 2025-08-15); House Oversight press release of 2 Dec 2024 (''The FIVE strongest arguments'', ''a biological characteristic that is not found in nature''), which is the actual holder of the refuted wording and is attributed as such; China''s white paper (all six pages: ''the study on the origins of SARS-CoV-2 conducted in China has ended'', the cold-chain sentence, ''Evidence Pointing to the US as the Origin of Covid-19'', 457 / 74 of 923, the Los Alamos/NIH/ODNI biosecurity sentence); NHC news item; McCowan 2025 (''the Bayes factor dropped to 4''); Weissman EJW 2026 (''a less compelling ~4.3''); Stoyan and Chiu 2023; Andersen written testimony 2023 (''If convincing new evidence were to be discovered ...''). That is 33 sources opened; every anchor source of every refuted claim, of every evidential_weight 5 claim and of the headline claim was opened, except as listed under what I could not check. Every quotation, figure, date and document number I checked matched the dig''s text, including the three quotations the mechanical quote check could not match because no stored copy exists. Judgment checks (REVIEW.md A to F). A: anchors say what the claims say; the one place the dig states a stronger source sentence than a summary would (Worobey''s ''occurred via the live wildlife trade'') is quoted in full and answered in the same claim. B: every absence claim (co-origin-not-established, co-no-progenitor-public, co-market-animals-untested, co-sq-market-supply-chain, co-sq-wiv-records, co-sq-early-sequences) carries absence_anchor: true and sits at provisional; I found no unmarked absence claim above provisional. anchor_checked: primary appears only where the primary document was read; the headline claim is honestly marked secondary and the headline is therefore draft. Each refuted claim uses narrative_drift, the weakest class, and refutes only the words ''proven'', ''shows'' or ''not found in nature''; no claim uses fabrication or institutional_propaganda. C: no claim draws weight from how many people or institutions hold a view; the agency, committee, WHO and white-paper claims are filed as adoption records of what a document says and the threads file carries confers_weight: false with explicit firewalls. D: both sides are held to the same bar: the ''proven'' claim is refuted on each side (co-market-origin-proven, co-lab-origin-proven), both hypotheses are contested at low confidence, and the strongest item on each side is stated with its own counter-evidence. E: the headline, search summary and assessment state no more than the claims support, carry no hype, and say plainly that the question is open; quotations are short and attributed. F: the log is append-only, records the discrepancies found (L-04, L-05), what could not be read (L-06), the filing decisions (L-07) and the author-side independent check and its nine fixes (L-10). Not checked by me, and why: the two Science errata (Worobey 2024, Pekar 2023) are paywalled, so the Bayes-factor change rests on two critics, as the dig says; the CIA, FBI, DOE and BND primary documents (not public); the Los Alamos and NIH reports China''s white paper names; the published JRSSA versions of the two Worobey critiques; the 2023 Bloom correction (an image); the WHO-China annexes; the HHS notice to WIV; the HSGAC Slack volumes, the FOIA DEFUSE drafts, the Johnson letter, the Marshall summary, the Biden and joint statements, the NIH 2020 letter, the OIG audit, the ODNI 2026 page and the CNN, NPR, CBS, Tagesspiegel, NOS and Scientific American pages (each already filed as secondary, unchecked or a searched gap at provisional confidence). Every one of these is marked not read in the dig itself. Verdict posted on PR #13: APPROVE, escalated to the owner because review.yaml is an owner-only path; I did not merge, did not touch build/site.yaml, and changed no other file.' rounds: - round: 1 reviewed_on: '2026-10-06' head: 94aa29f requests: - id: R1-1 target: co-lab-origin-proven severity: non_blocking finding: The 'Yes' position names the CIA as a holder of a laboratory-origin lean. The claim's own anchors (ODNI 2023, ODNI 2021, SAGO, House Democrats, Senate HELP) do not support that; ODNI 2023 puts the CIA among the agencies unable to determine. evidence: 'ODNI June 2023 (govinfo PDF, read by me): ''The Central Intelligence Agency and another agency remain unable to determine the precise origin of the COVID-19 pandemic''. The January 2025 CIA lean is press-reported only (co-cia-2025, provisional).' - id: R1-2 target: assessment.key_points[2] severity: non_blocking finding: Key point 3 is 205 characters, over the 170-character guide; conformance warns. evidence: 'python3 build/conformance.py --base origin/main: WARNING covid-origins: a key point is over 170 characters.' - id: R1-3 target: co-fcs-not-found-in-nature severity: non_blocking finding: The refuted wording is attributed in adoption_note to a House Oversight press release that is not a manifest source. evidence: 'I opened the release (oversight.house.gov, 2 Dec 2024): "The FIVE strongest arguments in favor of the “lab leak” theory include: The virus possesses a biological characteristic that is not found in nature." The wording matches; only the manifest entry is missing.' - id: R1-4 target: co-origin-not-established, co-no-progenitor-public severity: non_blocking finding: Both anchor descriptions quote named documents (ODNI 2021/2023, Temmam, Zhou) but carry no `sources` list, so the quotes cannot be resolved to the manifest mechanically. evidence: SCHEMA N25 makes `sources` optional, so this is not a conformance error; I checked each quoted passage by hand in the stored ODNI copies and in Temmam 2022 and Zhou 2020, and all matched.