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New coronavirus can spread between humans, but started in a wildlife market

nationalgeographic.com

121–130 of 350 posts

Re: New coronavirus can spread between humans, but started in a wildlife market

#121

Can someone explain https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi?RID=2PUA1EJK114&CMD... to me? This is a comparison between 'bat SARS-like coronavirus' and 'Wuhan seafood market pneumonia virus'. Under Alignments, it looks like the envelope proteins are identical. Wouldn't that be unlikely for a natural mutation? Would this not lead credence to this being a leak from their BSL-4 lab about twenty miles away from the Wuhan…

Yes. There’s a biology from Harvard who has noticed this. I think people are catching on it’s from the lab. I’ve seen PhD level biologists on twitter making the same observations Here it is: Wuhan virus is essentially SARs http://virological.org/t/missed-orfs-in-ncov/345 "Anyone notice two ‘accessory’ ORFs not annotated in nCoV? Orf13 (aka 9b) (28284:28577) and Orf14 (28734:28955) . One is ~ 70% ID and other ~ 90% to…

For non-biologists among us ORF = open reading frame. It has roughly the same meaning as a gene.

Re: New coronavirus can spread between humans, but started in a wildlife market

#122
post #23

Key quote from the article: > “If we were to shut the wildlife markets, a lot of these outbreaks would be a thing of the past,” says Ian Lipkin, director of Columbia University’s Center for Infection and Immunity, whose lab worked with Chinese officials to develop early diagnostic tests for SARS. > That’s because both SARS and the new outbreak are zoonotic, meaning these diseases started in animals before spreading t…

Maybe (hopefully?) China will shut down these markets after this outbreak. They've been known to take serious measures in the past when necessary. Surely the benefit of these markets cannot outweigh their costs (including on the local wildlife, not just infectious diseases).

It is because of the wealth disparity. A massive chunk of the population lives in absolute poverty. I don't see them fixing that anytime soon.

Re: New coronavirus can spread between humans, but started in a wildlife market

#123
post #28
post #21

From what I've read it came from bats. Most probably bats being eaten.[1] Bats have been the source of at least 4 pandemics. It's interesting to note that current coronavirus spreading in China and the SARS outbreak of 2003 have two things in common: Both are from the coronavirus family, and both were passed from animals to humans in a wet market.[2] I tried to put together a page for coronavirus in China here where…

I’ve read virology reports that the virus originated most likely from bats but through an intermediary source — as to which animal, that’s unknown. Another thing I’ve been pondering is since bats have been the source of deadly, infectious diseases in humans for so long, that’s where the historical myth of vampires and the living dead come from.

There’s plenty of actual research into the ancient origin of vampires you can read without resorting to baseless speculation. There is no single myth or origin and eastern europe has no vampire bats—in fact, the bats are named after the myth. The connection is likely due to them simply being nocturnal.

EDIT: My tone came off as completely dismissing your thinking, which I don't mean to, I just mean to say that there's already a lot written on the topic.

Re: New coronavirus can spread between humans, but started in a wildlife market

#124

President Xi has warned that the virus is spreading. His intervention seems to be unprecedented. Is it worse than what it seems to be? They have quarantined whole cities and are building a hospital at war scale especially for this. Maybe the Chinese know something that the world doesn't know yet.

I have a friend who teaches in China and according to him everyone is extremely worried. People aren't going out, wearing masks when they do, and so forth.

For what it's worth I'm flying back home to the US from the UAE and at the airport as I was waiting to check my bag I saw many (10+) groups of Chinese tourists checking entire boxes of 3M N95 masks. My guess is that they're running out at home and these tourists saw an opportunity to make some money or help people out (or both).

Re: New coronavirus can spread between humans, but started in a wildlife market

#125
I'm surprised no one has commented on how unhealthy, unhygienic and to some level immoral the consumption of genetically similar animals is. One more reason we should only eat creatures very genetically dissimilar to us. Eating bats, cows, rats, pigs etc will give you nasty results indeed because their pathogens can attack you very easily as opposed to a fish. (Actually eating undercooked fish can give you a nasty thing called liver flukes so even thats not safe)

Re: New coronavirus can spread between humans, but started in a wildlife market

#126

I don't understand why people eat monkey or bats? if they have all these virus or diseases in them. It's 2020 we have more food in the world than we did years ago no need to eat a bat just grab an apple.

Food is still a large share of many people's incomes. It is not surprising to me that some people may want to eat free or cheaper food, still in 2020. Some of us may have plenty of food - heck many of us have way too much. But if you travel around the world really at all you would quickly understand why some may eat non-commercially produced food.

Also, still in the US people eat animals like squirrels, raccoons or feral pork.

Re: New coronavirus can spread between humans, but started in a wildlife market

#127
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bats carry many viruses but are asymptomatic. Pigs can contract viruses from other animals, they mutate and then it's passed on to humans. A bat biting a pig is probably the cause of many weird viruses. You also have to wonder if the African Swine flu running rampant through China is also part of the cause.

> wonder if the African Swine flu running rampant through China is also part of the cause You mean as in it having transformed and evolved from the swine flu?

I guess it's actually called African Swine Fever aka Swine Flu.

If pigs can be incubators of human and non-human viruses and ASF being rampant did it and whatever bat virus or seafood virus get together in a pig and create 2019-nCoV.

Re: New coronavirus can spread between humans, but started in a wildlife market

#128

President Xi has warned that the virus is spreading. His intervention seems to be unprecedented. Is it worse than what it seems to be? They have quarantined whole cities and are building a hospital at war scale especially for this. Maybe the Chinese know something that the world doesn't know yet.

Anecdotal (not official) reports suggest as many as 100,000 infections in Wuhan area. There are claims the virus may be spread through eyes as well as inhalation. Additional unsubstantiated claims suggest low to no fever during incubation period, making detection difficult. The most sensationalist claim making the rounds is that a known Wuhan area PLA biolab may have failed to contain this pathogen. In the end none o…

Is transmission through eyes that odd?

The common cold already is. You rub your eyes, the virus enters your tears, which drain to your nose.

Re: New coronavirus can spread between humans, but started in a wildlife market

#129

I don't understand why people eat monkey or bats? if they have all these virus or diseases in them. It's 2020 we have more food in the world than we did years ago no need to eat a bat just grab an apple.

There is a reason why "Contagion" starts in China ...

Re: New coronavirus can spread between humans, but started in a wildlife market

#130
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 1963 during last outbreak of smallpox epidemic in Europe Wroclaw in Poland had been quarantined for 47 days. [] https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/6nhzqd/54_years_ago...

Correction - 1972 Yugoslav smallpox outbreak was the last in Europe [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Yugoslav_smallpox_outbrea...

Actually it was in the UK. This was also (hopefully) the last death ever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_smallpox_outbreak_in_the_...

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