Yes, Bats Carry The Virus - BUT They Are Not The "Bad Guys"

Amidst continuing furor in the country, including  mounting protests against police nationwide, and now learning of a widespread "Antifa hysteria" disabling the less capable and discriminating brains, e.g.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/17/opinion/antifa-protests.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=OpEd%20Columnists

 As well as Trump endorsing Chinese concentration camps for the minority Uyghur Muslims, gleaned from John Bolton's just released book. (Of course, 99% of Bolton's content , i.e. regarding Trump being chaotic, despotic  and "transactional" we already knew from earlier works - such as from authors like Michael Wolff, Bob Woodward,  James Comey and Cliff Simms.)   We are still not covering all bases in this time of historical upheaval.

Slowly retreating from the national 'radar'  - in the yen to return to normality -  is the persistent threat of the Covid 19 virus (SARS-COV-2)which is still filling up hospital ICUs and ravaging lives and lungs.    In addition, millions of people are disrespecting the virus - its very nature of transmission - by turning the wearing of masks into a tribal identity issue.   Beyond that, many of those non-mask tribes hail from red states and blame the virus and the bats carrying it for causing the lockdown and economic devastation - as opposed to Trump.

Let's recall again Trump wasted two weeks of critical time calling the pandemic a "hoax", after which he refused to organize a nationally coordinated response- forcing medical centers and health workers to compete for scarce ppe. He then stage managed chaotic  PR "briefings" which  overshadowed the medical professionals and substituted his own ignorant notions and beliefs.  One casualty? A young patient who came into the emergency room with damage to his intestinal tract after having ingested bleach. The incident occurred just days after Trump suggested that "injection" of disinfectants should be researched as a potential coronavirus treatment .   There followed  - on top of all Trump's other misfires- an intentional gutting and muzzling of the CDC which caused Laurie Garrett to deliver a scathing assessment on 'Democracy Now' 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_z297eni8c

As well as a withering piece on Trump's total incompetence:

 Trump Has Sabotaged America's Coronavirus Response

 
The Trumpistas tried to fight back by confecting a cockeyed conspiracy ideation that China was ultimately to blame. Indeed, a WSJ May 2 (p. A3) that "the Education Department has asked the University of Texas system to provide documentation of its dealings with the Chinese laboratory U.S. officials are investigating", i.e.  the Wuhan Institute of Virology and its researcher Shi Zhenghi.   The eminent scientist dubbed "Bat Woman" because of her work on bats.  All this despite the fact (ibid.):  "There is no concrete public evidence to confirm the theory the outbreak resulted from an accident at the lab."  And so "the current dominant theory remains that the bats passed the virus to humans either directly or indirectly."

WSJ columnist Matt Ridley showed the connection between bats and the virus in his article:  The Bats Behind The Pandemic', WSJ, April 11-12, p. C5.

Therein he noted that:

"Bats have supplied most of the dangerous new diseases of the past two decades including: rabies, Ebola, Marburg and other highly dangerous viruses...even the "tasty" fruit bats carry the Hendra and Nipah viruses - and have been responsible for "small but lethal outbreaks in South Asia and Australia"

""One quarter of all mammal species are bats - and they have lots of different viruses. They also fly so can carry diseases long distances."

But this may be giving bats too much of a bad name in terms of being the source of the new coronavirus as well as spreading it, while letting humans off the hook. Why are humans on the hook in the first place?  A recent (Feb. 18) article in The Nation by Sonia Smith sheds much needed light on how and why we are the real 'bad guys' and not the bats. Ms. Smith does concede that 60 percent of the most virulent microbial pathogens  that have emerged since 1940 can be traced to bats and other wild creatures.  But as she writes:

"That's not the fault of the wild animals.  Though stories illustrated with pictures of the wild animals (like the fruit bat, see photo) abound and identify them as "the source" of the current Covid 19 outbreak"  this is premature.  The reason is that most of the microbes "live harmlessly" in the bodies of the animals - including the horseshoe bat  (Rhinolophus affinis) the carrier of the Covid 19 virus.

But wait! Doesn't that make this bat the bad guy?  

Not really, because (ibid.):

"The problem is the way that cutting down forests and expanding towns and industrial activities creates pathways for the animal microbes to adapt to the human body...Cutting down bats' forests forces them to roost in trees in backyards and farms instead, increasing the likelihood that a human might take a bite of a piece of fruit covered in bat saliva. Or hunt and slaughter a local bat, exposing oneself to the virus sheltering in the bat's tissues."


So here's the point: viruses were on Earth billions of years before humans and there is no way all can be eliminated. In the case of their presence in bats and other wild creatures we behold a kind of peaceful co-existence.  The viruses just inhabit those animal tissues for the most part but don't kill the beasts. But when humans enter the picture - say by destruction of bat wild habitat- that's when things get ugly.

Again, the fictional (2011) movie 'Contagion' probably has one of the most illuminating scenes - but near the end- on how "Patient Zero" (Gwenneth Paltrow's character ) became infected. To recount: we see a flock of bats originally perched on trees which then fly over a pig farm in Guangdong province and drop bat guano over the pig feeding area. The guano is already infected with the unknown virus. The pigs then consume the guano, and become infected themselves. 

 In the film the Chinese hog butcher slaughters one of these pigs, gets pig blood all over his hands - wipes it off.  He then greets Gweneth Paltrow's character (on a visit on behalf of her corporation) and she shakes the butcher's hand.  She then becomes "Patient zero" - which we learn only at the end- though we suspect it earlier.   When she then visits a bar full of people and glasses with which she makes contact, we know how this pandemic began.  Who is to blame? Well, not the bats whose habitat was violently upended by the industrial activity of Patient zero's corporation. In the words of biologist Christine Kreuder Johnson, Director for the Epicenter for Disease Dynamics at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine:
  

“Spillover of viruses from animals are a direct result of our actions involving wildlife and their habitat.  The consequence is they’re sharing their viruses with us. These actions simultaneously threaten species survival and increase the risk of spillover. In an unfortunate convergence of many factors, this brings about the kind of mess we’re in now.”

Something to consider next time we plan to barge into a bat's habitat- or that of any other creature. Want to keep viral outbreaks down? Then we need to stop invading the living spaces of other animals with which we share this planet.  In the case of bats, before we contemplate slaughtering them to protect human health, we may want to consider their role in global biodiversity and ecosystem health as well as beneficial neighbors. Included in the last are:their role in pollination, dispersal of fruits and consumption of insects - especially those responsible for many dread human diseases.  As one scientist has pointed out: "The good they do outweighs any potential negatives."

In the meantime we can assert the real 'bad guys'  are the  HUMAN cretins who continue to threaten public health officials, both via  social media and live - including showing up at their homes with weapons.  Idiots like the "Freedom Angels" that stalk and harass health officials online (e.g. on Facebook) as well as other misfits, worms and vermin.  And what are all these crazies exercised about? Well, being mandated to wear masks, and practicing social distancing - the only ways to avoid another lockdown, or nationwide quarantine.   The only practical means to avoid hundreds of thousands more infections and hospital ICUs being flooded with desperately ill Covid patients.

See Also:

The Bat Behind The Coronavirus Pandemic ID'd - A...