Market for bats in Yunnan province - ripe and ready to go for Bat soup. The continued invasion of certain bat habitats to raid for food ensures endless pandemics, and is definitely connected to climate change.
The horsehoe bat (Rhinolophus affinis) the prime culprit in the spread of Covid-19.
The horsehoe bat (Rhinolophus affinis) the prime culprit in the spread of Covid-19.
"RaTG13 is the name, rank and serial number of an individual horseshoe bat of the species Rhinolophus affinis, or rather a sample of its feces collected in 2013 in a cave in Yunna, China. The sample was collected by hazmat -clad scientists from the Institute of Virology in Wuhan that year. Stored away and forgotten until January this year, the sample from this bat contains the virus hat caused Covid-19."- Matt Ridley, 'The Bats Behind The Pandemic', WSJ, April 11-12, p. C5
Matt Ridley's revelation of the bat identity that's spawned the current Covid-19 pandemic was an eye opener for many, especially as he drilled down deep to show what we're up against. Below, I summarize some of the main findings from his must read WSJ piece;:
- In an initial foray into Shiton Cave, south of Kumming, Chinese scientists found viruses in the bat droppings and anal swabs "that were more similar to human SARS than anything fond in palm civets, the small mammals until then presumed to be the source of the human infection."
- Back in the lab the researchers "found that one of the viruses in the droppings, called W1V1, as able to thrive in monkey and human cells- specially engineered to activate the gene for ACE2 rcceptors. These are the ones that provide the 'lock' to which the coronavirus' protein spike can fit as a key." This is the lock and key that showed humans could catch SARS from bat droppings and which is the key to the horrific respiratory distress suffered by many patients.
- In 2016, Ralph Baric and collegaues at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill "found the same bat virus could infect live mice that had been engineered to express the same gene for the ACE 2 receptor." According to the paper published in the wake: "The virus was poised for human emergence,"
- The role of an animal called the Pangolin, e.g.
was considered in terms of its possible role in the spread of the virus.This was especially given "an illegal pangolin trade for traditional Chinese medicine brings people into close contact with sick animals." However, while the role of pangolins in the spread of SARS-COV-2 (the virus that causes Covid-19) remains unclear, "a closer look at the genome (published last week by Maciej Boni at Penn State and David Robertson at Glasgow University) "found that human versions of the virus were more closely related to the RaTG13 horseshoe bat sample found in a cave."
But stunningly, the same analysis showed that "the most recent common ancestor of the human virus and the BaTG13 virus lived at least 40 years ago." So it is unlikely the cave in Yunnan (1,000 miles from Wuhan) is where the first Covid-19 infection happened or that the culprit bat was taken from that cave to Wuhan to be chucked into a bat soup. And the kicker:
"Somewhere much closer to Wuhan there is another colony of bats carrying the same kind of virus" so that "it looks like a horrible coincidence that China's Institute of Virology - where human cells were being experimentally infected with bat viruses- happens to be in Wuhan, the origin of today's pandemic". Never mind coincidence! Look for the Reich conspiracy mongers to use it to invent nonsense that this is a Chinese "bio-weapon" or some such rot.
Ridley in his extensive piece goes on to note that bats are "sold directly to restaurants throughout China and southeast Asia, but no direct evidence if their sale to Wuhan's wet markets have come to light."
Which is gratifying to know, so that rational people (including you, Bill Maher) -will now be justified in just calling it Covid-19 and not the lurid "Wuhan virus". What is not gratifying to learn is that the Yunnan cave sample shows the bat virus didn't need to recombine with viruses in other species in a market to be infectious to people. Instead, "the role of the wet markets may be that other animals got infected there and produce much higher loads of virus than the bats alone would, amplifying the infection." This, in fact, was the conclusion of one Australian virologist working at a lab with Covid-infected bats in Singapore - and featured on an MSNBC special on the pandemic. She opined to Richard Engel that virus-laden bat guano contaminated a hog pen and got on a butcher's hands - which were then indiscriminately wiped onto another surface- then picked up by an unsuspecting third party.
More worrying even is the potential for many future pandemics, epidemics, i.e.
"All over Asia and Africa human beings encounter horseshoe bats, any one of which could be carrying a virus that could start an epidemic if amplified in a market or similar setting. Bats have supplied most of the dangerous new diseases of the past two decades including: rabies, Ebola, Marburg and other highly dangerous viruses."
Above all this shows humans need to stay out of bat habitat - invading their caves, or catching the little beasts to put into soup or other exotic dishes. As Ridley points out, 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." More worrisome yet is that bats are long-lived mammals like we are and often live in congested conditions - citing one single bat roost in Texas with 20 million bats at certain times of the year. All of which portends a nonstop battle with viruses associated with these critters, and how our encroachment into bat habitats puts us all at risk. I.e. "One quarter of all mammal species are bats - and they have lots of different viruses. They also fly so can carry diseases long distances."
These findings also torch the claims of a wingnut WSJ hack named Andy Kessler, ‘Coronavirus Shatters Complacency’, April 13, p. A15) that:
“The pandemic has awakened us from climate nightmares”
By his arguments and clueless statements he reveals (again) the inability of the Journal’s stable of neolib capitalists to integrate disparate concepts, realities. In this case, failing to grasp that the pandemic, indeed, is a direct offshoot of humans’ failure to take climate change seriously – and act responsibly. How so?
Matt Ridley's revelation of the bat identity that's spawned the current Covid-19 pandemic was an eye opener for many, especially as he drilled down deep to show what we're up against. Below, I summarize some of the main findings from his must read WSJ piece;:
- In an initial foray into Shiton Cave, south of Kumming, Chinese scientists found viruses in the bat droppings and anal swabs "that were more similar to human SARS than anything fond in palm civets, the small mammals until then presumed to be the source of the human infection."
- Back in the lab the researchers "found that one of the viruses in the droppings, called W1V1, as able to thrive in monkey and human cells- specially engineered to activate the gene for ACE2 rcceptors. These are the ones that provide the 'lock' to which the coronavirus' protein spike can fit as a key." This is the lock and key that showed humans could catch SARS from bat droppings and which is the key to the horrific respiratory distress suffered by many patients.
- In 2016, Ralph Baric and collegaues at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill "found the same bat virus could infect live mice that had been engineered to express the same gene for the ACE 2 receptor." According to the paper published in the wake: "The virus was poised for human emergence,"
- The role of an animal called the Pangolin, e.g.
was considered in terms of its possible role in the spread of the virus.This was especially given "an illegal pangolin trade for traditional Chinese medicine brings people into close contact with sick animals." However, while the role of pangolins in the spread of SARS-COV-2 (the virus that causes Covid-19) remains unclear, "a closer look at the genome (published last week by Maciej Boni at Penn State and David Robertson at Glasgow University) "found that human versions of the virus were more closely related to the RaTG13 horseshoe bat sample found in a cave."
But stunningly, the same analysis showed that "the most recent common ancestor of the human virus and the BaTG13 virus lived at least 40 years ago." So it is unlikely the cave in Yunnan (1,000 miles from Wuhan) is where the first Covid-19 infection happened or that the culprit bat was taken from that cave to Wuhan to be chucked into a bat soup. And the kicker:
"Somewhere much closer to Wuhan there is another colony of bats carrying the same kind of virus" so that "it looks like a horrible coincidence that China's Institute of Virology - where human cells were being experimentally infected with bat viruses- happens to be in Wuhan, the origin of today's pandemic". Never mind coincidence! Look for the Reich conspiracy mongers to use it to invent nonsense that this is a Chinese "bio-weapon" or some such rot.
Ridley in his extensive piece goes on to note that bats are "sold directly to restaurants throughout China and southeast Asia, but no direct evidence if their sale to Wuhan's wet markets have come to light."
Which is gratifying to know, so that rational people (including you, Bill Maher) -will now be justified in just calling it Covid-19 and not the lurid "Wuhan virus". What is not gratifying to learn is that the Yunnan cave sample shows the bat virus didn't need to recombine with viruses in other species in a market to be infectious to people. Instead, "the role of the wet markets may be that other animals got infected there and produce much higher loads of virus than the bats alone would, amplifying the infection." This, in fact, was the conclusion of one Australian virologist working at a lab with Covid-infected bats in Singapore - and featured on an MSNBC special on the pandemic. She opined to Richard Engel that virus-laden bat guano contaminated a hog pen and got on a butcher's hands - which were then indiscriminately wiped onto another surface- then picked up by an unsuspecting third party.
More worrying even is the potential for many future pandemics, epidemics, i.e.
"All over Asia and Africa human beings encounter horseshoe bats, any one of which could be carrying a virus that could start an epidemic if amplified in a market or similar setting. Bats have supplied most of the dangerous new diseases of the past two decades including: rabies, Ebola, Marburg and other highly dangerous viruses."
Above all this shows humans need to stay out of bat habitat - invading their caves, or catching the little beasts to put into soup or other exotic dishes. As Ridley points out, 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." More worrisome yet is that bats are long-lived mammals like we are and often live in congested conditions - citing one single bat roost in Texas with 20 million bats at certain times of the year. All of which portends a nonstop battle with viruses associated with these critters, and how our encroachment into bat habitats puts us all at risk. I.e. "One quarter of all mammal species are bats - and they have lots of different viruses. They also fly so can carry diseases long distances."
These findings also torch the claims of a wingnut WSJ hack named Andy Kessler, ‘Coronavirus Shatters Complacency’, April 13, p. A15) that:
“The pandemic has awakened us from climate nightmares”
By his arguments and clueless statements he reveals (again) the inability of the Journal’s stable of neolib capitalists to integrate disparate concepts, realities. In this case, failing to grasp that the pandemic, indeed, is a direct offshoot of humans’ failure to take climate change seriously – and act responsibly. How so?
Hunting, farming and the global movement of people to cities –
and concomitant invasion of wild animal habitat - has led to massive declines
in biodiversity and increased the risk of dangerous viruses like Covid-19
spilling over from animals to humans.
We now know 142
viruses have been transmitted from animals to humans over many years, and many have been matched to the IUCN’s red list of
threatened species. The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal
Society B, found that the spillover risk was highest from threatened and
endangered wild animals whose populations had declined largely due to hunting,
the wildlife trade and loss of habitat. As
the paper summary put it:
“Human encroachment into biodiverse areas
increases the risk of spillover of novel infectious diseases by enabling new
contacts between humans and wildlife … We found that species in the primate and
bat orders were significantly more likely to harbor zoonotic viruses compared
to all other orders,”
In the words of lead author Christine Kreuder Johnson, director
of the EpiCenter for Disease Dynamics at the One Health Institute, of 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.”
Adding:
“We need to be really attentive to how we interact with wildlife
and the activities that bring humans and wildlife together. We obviously don’t
want pandemics of this scale. We need to find ways to co-exist safely with
wildlife, as they have no shortages of viruses to give us,”.
This comports totally with what former Vice President Al Gore
told Bill Maher on last Friday night's Real Time – in respect of humans
encroaching on wild animal habitat and especially using these animals
indiscriminately as exotic food. It also dovetail with Matt Ridley's excellent WSJ review article (April 11-12, p. C 3) I summarized in this post.
The takeaway is that only an idiot or congenital moron would fail to see the connection between climate change and plundering endangered wildilife habitat (or the habitats of exotic or dangerous species like horse shoe bats). The latter in a dumb effort to get strange food or make way for human engineering projects (such as depicted in the 2011 film, 'Contagion.)
The takeaway is that only an idiot or congenital moron would fail to see the connection between climate change and plundering endangered wildilife habitat (or the habitats of exotic or dangerous species like horse shoe bats). The latter in a dumb effort to get strange food or make way for human engineering projects (such as depicted in the 2011 film, 'Contagion.)
