From f9d56d5c0e62937245af65a49b20b2f6b4e794c4 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Trevor Bedford Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2026 13:52:29 -0800 Subject: [PATCH 1/3] Include initial draft of blog post --- .../blog/2026-02-24-gisaid-joint-response.md | 18 ++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 18 insertions(+) create mode 100644 static-site/content/blog/2026-02-24-gisaid-joint-response.md diff --git a/static-site/content/blog/2026-02-24-gisaid-joint-response.md b/static-site/content/blog/2026-02-24-gisaid-joint-response.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..a3c5ad9de --- /dev/null +++ b/static-site/content/blog/2026-02-24-gisaid-joint-response.md @@ -0,0 +1,18 @@ +--- +author: "Trevor Bedford, Richard Neher and the Nextstrain team" +date: "2026-02-24" +title: "Joint response to GISAID regarding termination of SARS-CoV-2 data feeds" +sidebarTitle: "Joint response to GISAID regarding termination of SARS-CoV-2 data feeds" +--- + +Since our [Nov 6 update](/blog/2025-11-06-gisaid-based-ncov-analyses), we haven't had further correspondence with GISAID Secretariat and the data feed for SARS-CoV-2 hasn't been updated. +We believe it's likely safe to assume that the feed won't be returning and so our GISAID-based analyses at [nextstrain.org.ncov/gisaid](/ncov/gisaid) will remain on hold indefinitely with a last update on Oct 1, 2025. +Meanwhile, we continue to update the open analyses based on GenBank / INSDC data weekly to produce phylogenetic analyses at [nextstrain.org.ncov/open](/ncov/open) as well as variant fitness analyses at [nextstrain.org/sars-cov-2/forecasts](/sars-cov-2/forecasts). + +Meanwhile, on Jan 20, [GISAID posted a statement](https://gisaid.org/statements/20260120/) that obliquely refers to Trevor Bedford as "individual 4" and states that "GISAID terminated the data feed provided to a developer of software for visualizing phylogenomic data, after a review revealed that 'regional data packages' generated by the developer and offered through GISAID, were for the most part no longer being downloaded." +As we described in detail on the our [Nov 6 blog post](/blog/2025-11-06-gisaid-based-ncov-analyses), we contend that making metadata and sequences available through the "nextregion" interface was a secondary byproduct enacted in May 2020 to allow reproducible research given strictures of GISAID's data resharing policy. +We had [previously documented emails](https://data.nextstrain.org/files/blog/2025-11-06_gisaid_fact_check.pdf) from Jan 2020 and May 2020 that show this this to be the case. +This re-writing of history matches previous behavior by GISAID regarding their contentions surrounding the [first publicly shared SARS-CoV-2 genome sequence](https://www.science.org/content/article/dispute-simmers-over-who-first-shared-sars-cov-2-s-genome). + +[COG-UK](https://www.sanger.ac.uk/collaboration/covid-19-genomics-uk-cog-uk-consortium/), [outbreak.info](https://outbreak.info/) and [Cov-Spectrum](https://cov-spectrum.org/) were also referenced in GISAID's Jan 20 statement. +Consequently, we, along with COG-UK, outbreak.info and Cov-Spectrum, have issued a joint response to GISAID that can be found at [github.com/andersen-lab/2026_gisaid_response](https://github.com/andersen-lab/2026_gisaid_response). From b9cb5cebae22ca2957ab3c87bde1b6eab08b77e7 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Trevor Bedford Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2026 15:09:16 -0800 Subject: [PATCH 2/3] Fix typos --- .../content/blog/2026-02-24-gisaid-joint-response.md | 8 ++++---- 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) diff --git a/static-site/content/blog/2026-02-24-gisaid-joint-response.md b/static-site/content/blog/2026-02-24-gisaid-joint-response.md index a3c5ad9de..dcbd89da8 100644 --- a/static-site/content/blog/2026-02-24-gisaid-joint-response.md +++ b/static-site/content/blog/2026-02-24-gisaid-joint-response.md @@ -5,13 +5,13 @@ title: "Joint response to GISAID regarding termination of SARS-CoV-2 data feeds" sidebarTitle: "Joint response to GISAID regarding termination of SARS-CoV-2 data feeds" --- -Since our [Nov 6 update](/blog/2025-11-06-gisaid-based-ncov-analyses), we haven't had further correspondence with GISAID Secretariat and the data feed for SARS-CoV-2 hasn't been updated. +Since our [Nov 6 update](/blog/2025-11-06-gisaid-based-ncov-analyses), we haven't had further correspondence with GISAID Secretariat and the GISAID data feed for SARS-CoV-2 hasn't been updated. We believe it's likely safe to assume that the feed won't be returning and so our GISAID-based analyses at [nextstrain.org.ncov/gisaid](/ncov/gisaid) will remain on hold indefinitely with a last update on Oct 1, 2025. Meanwhile, we continue to update the open analyses based on GenBank / INSDC data weekly to produce phylogenetic analyses at [nextstrain.org.ncov/open](/ncov/open) as well as variant fitness analyses at [nextstrain.org/sars-cov-2/forecasts](/sars-cov-2/forecasts). -Meanwhile, on Jan 20, [GISAID posted a statement](https://gisaid.org/statements/20260120/) that obliquely refers to Trevor Bedford as "individual 4" and states that "GISAID terminated the data feed provided to a developer of software for visualizing phylogenomic data, after a review revealed that 'regional data packages' generated by the developer and offered through GISAID, were for the most part no longer being downloaded." -As we described in detail on the our [Nov 6 blog post](/blog/2025-11-06-gisaid-based-ncov-analyses), we contend that making metadata and sequences available through the "nextregion" interface was a secondary byproduct enacted in May 2020 to allow reproducible research given strictures of GISAID's data resharing policy. -We had [previously documented emails](https://data.nextstrain.org/files/blog/2025-11-06_gisaid_fact_check.pdf) from Jan 2020 and May 2020 that show this this to be the case. +Meanwhile, on Jan 20, [GISAID posted a statement](https://gisaid.org/statements/20260120/) that obliquely refers to Trevor Bedford as "individual four" and states that "GISAID terminated the data feed provided to a developer of software for visualizing phylogenomic data, after a review revealed that 'regional data packages' generated by the developer and offered through GISAID, were for the most part no longer being downloaded." +As we described in detail in [our Nov 6 blog post](/blog/2025-11-06-gisaid-based-ncov-analyses), we contend that making metadata and sequences available through the "nextregion" interface was a secondary byproduct enacted in May 2020 to allow reproducible research given strictures of GISAID's data resharing policy. +We had [previously documented emails](https://data.nextstrain.org/files/blog/2025-11-06_gisaid_fact_check.pdf) from Jan 2020 and May 2020 that show this to be the case. This re-writing of history matches previous behavior by GISAID regarding their contentions surrounding the [first publicly shared SARS-CoV-2 genome sequence](https://www.science.org/content/article/dispute-simmers-over-who-first-shared-sars-cov-2-s-genome). [COG-UK](https://www.sanger.ac.uk/collaboration/covid-19-genomics-uk-cog-uk-consortium/), [outbreak.info](https://outbreak.info/) and [Cov-Spectrum](https://cov-spectrum.org/) were also referenced in GISAID's Jan 20 statement. From 3d53938e3c8afc429c6558646c53b0dc5df7e667 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Trevor Bedford Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2026 20:29:49 -0800 Subject: [PATCH 3/3] Update 2026-02-24-gisaid-joint-response.md --- static-site/content/blog/2026-02-24-gisaid-joint-response.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/static-site/content/blog/2026-02-24-gisaid-joint-response.md b/static-site/content/blog/2026-02-24-gisaid-joint-response.md index dcbd89da8..03c24baa8 100644 --- a/static-site/content/blog/2026-02-24-gisaid-joint-response.md +++ b/static-site/content/blog/2026-02-24-gisaid-joint-response.md @@ -15,4 +15,4 @@ We had [previously documented emails](https://data.nextstrain.org/files/blog/202 This re-writing of history matches previous behavior by GISAID regarding their contentions surrounding the [first publicly shared SARS-CoV-2 genome sequence](https://www.science.org/content/article/dispute-simmers-over-who-first-shared-sars-cov-2-s-genome). [COG-UK](https://www.sanger.ac.uk/collaboration/covid-19-genomics-uk-cog-uk-consortium/), [outbreak.info](https://outbreak.info/) and [Cov-Spectrum](https://cov-spectrum.org/) were also referenced in GISAID's Jan 20 statement. -Consequently, we, along with COG-UK, outbreak.info and Cov-Spectrum, have issued a joint response to GISAID that can be found at [github.com/andersen-lab/2026_gisaid_response](https://github.com/andersen-lab/2026_gisaid_response). +Consequently, we, along with members of COG-UK, outbreak.info and Cov-Spectrum, have issued a joint response to GISAID that can be found at [github.com/andersen-lab/2026_gisaid_response](https://github.com/andersen-lab/2026_gisaid_response).