Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nationalgeographic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 350 posts

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

#271

Post by _byed »

tempsy wrote: post #269
_byed wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What culture eats bats? > It’s not a Chinese thing. So which ones do? Upvote for asking without animosity. I appreciate you. Since you asked, > Bats are a food source for humans in some areas. Bats are consumed in various amounts in Seychelles, Indonesia, Vietnam, Guam, and in some other Asian and Pacific Rim countries and cultures.[1][2][3] In Guam, Mariana fruit bats (Pteropus mariannus) are considered a delicacy…

So what is your point? That because a food source is considered by some people to be a delicacy means it’s racist to suggest that eating it is unwise given the public health risk? Foie Gras is banned in CA because it’s produced inhumanly and consider cruel. Is that action a form of racism against French culture?

Why do you keep suggesting racism here? Bigotry is the word, but if the food source isn't endangered (some bats are, some aren't) (edit: or produced cruelly, to your point), and if the education exists to safely prepare the food (e.g. cook it thoroughly to avoid pathogens), there's no real reason to dissuade routine consumption other than cultural biases or "ew that's gross," which frankly is the same thing.

On the other hand, if the food tends to have high concentrations of compounds or substances that can cause harm with no easy mechanism to remove said compounds (think prions or e.g. mercury), then yes, now you have a substantial concern that justifies dissuading or banning consumption.

Tldr: if you're gonna ban people from eating bats at all, do the same for chicken. Undercooked chicken can get you salmonella, live chicken might give you the flu, and you'll never know which bug might just be transmissible person to person, R0 > 1.

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

#272

Post by philliphaydon »

nopinsight wrote: post #268

Neil Ferguson, an epidemologist at Imperial College, suggested that the 2019 novel coronavirus’ Basic Reproduction Number (R0) [1] is about 2.5, which aligns with figures from other research groups. The 1918 pandemic-causing flu’s R0 was between 2 and 3 [1] while seasonal flu’s figure is only 1.3 [2]. This is not to say everyone should panic as the strict containment policy that China and the Chinese adopted should h…

> as the strict containment policy that China adopted should help reduce the R0 significantly

What strict containment policy?

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

#273

Post by nopinsight »

philliphaydon wrote: post #272
nopinsight wrote: post #268

Neil Ferguson, an epidemologist at Imperial College, suggested that the 2019 novel coronavirus’ Basic Reproduction Number (R0) [1] is about 2.5, which aligns with figures from other research groups. The 1918 pandemic-causing flu’s R0 was between 2 and 3 [1] while seasonal flu’s figure is only 1.3 [2]. This is not to say everyone should panic as the strict containment policy that China and the Chinese adopted should h…

> as the strict containment policy that China adopted should help reduce the R0 significantly What strict containment policy?

Quarantine of 12 cities and 35 million residents. Suspension of tour groups out of the whole country.

What more can you do?

https://qz.com/1790891/china-expands-quarantine-to-12-cities...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/25/world/asia/china-coronavi...

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

#274

Post by P_I_Staker »

tunesmith wrote: post #151
tempsy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be more concerned if the ones that are outside of China were dying at high rates. So far I haven’t heard any of those quarantined people actually dying. The ones in the US have been listed in fair condition and recovering.

General consensus so far seems to be about twice as fatal as the annual flu. (Which says nothing about transmissibility rate / R0, which they are still figuring out.) Really rough numbers, annual flu is around 0.1% , while the spanish flu was more like 2.5% So, not a pandemic in terms of fatality. General sense so far seems to be it's more of a big deal than the (run-of-the-mill) flu, less of a big deal than SARS. (K…

The spanish flu killed way more than that, at least according to wikipedia. Something like 10-20%. It was a monumental event that killed a percentage of the entire global population. The kind of thing you can only call a true plague. Think like the black plague, where a substantial percentage of some populations where wiped off the face of the earn. Imagine 1/3 or 1/2 of your community dying.

I keep seeing this 2.5% number, and I don't understand what people are talking about.

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

#275

Post by philliphaydon »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #248
Fomite wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's very little evidence N95 masks work better than surgical masks, which are cheaper and easier to use.

Umm, properly used N95 masks have been shown to filter particles <10 nm...

N95 masks are better when there's dust, or smog, but don't make preventing getting sick any better than surgical masks. The idea behind surgical masks is to prevent you from getting sick when people sneeze, cough, etc. So the effectiveness is basically the same providing you use them properly.

Never touch the front of the mask. Wash your hands after removing. Dispose of mask after use.

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

#277

Post by moulei »

jkqwzsoo wrote: post #253
tempsy wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It came from a wet market for exotic meats. If it wasn’t a bat it was some other animal that was illegally trafficked and shouldn’t have been sold for consumption.

> It came from a wet market for exotic meats. If it wasn’t a bat it was some other animal that was illegally trafficked and shouldn’t have been sold for consumption. And this has what to do about making specific claims without evidence? With passing off sources as supporting your claims when they make no such claim?

https://time.com/5770904/wuhan-coronavirus-wild-animals/

Several media outlets have confirmed that the "seafood market" actually sells a wide variety of wildlife meat

And a reference pic in Chinese here On this board, it says "Wildfowl Market". They put a price on some meats, including Masked palm civet, which suspected to be the intermediate host of the disease.

https://www.6parknews.com/newspark/view.php?app=news&act=vie...

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

#278

Post by philliphaydon »

nopinsight wrote: post #273
philliphaydon wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as the strict containment policy that China adopted should help reduce the R0 significantly What strict containment policy?

Quarantine of 12 cities and 35 million residents. Suspension of tour groups out of the whole country. What more can you do? https://qz.com/1790891/china-expands-quarantine-to-12-cities... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/25/world/asia/china-coronavi...

They quarantined Wuhan, and announced it 8 hours before they did it, they estimated 200k people left Wuhan in a rush. Yet people are still entering and exiting Wuhan for CNY. So as far as I'm concerned this quarantine is just political face.

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

#279

Post by cjbprime »

sdiw wrote: 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 think you might be confused about "bats being eaten". A theory on SARS is that it was spread by bats eating fruit, leaving guano on it, civets eat the guano-laced fruit, people eat the civets. Just because bats are an important part of the vector doesn't mean that people are eating them directly. I haven't seen anyone claim, for example, that live bats were actually sold at the Wuhan wet markets. But civets are, illegally.

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

#280

Post by wsc981 »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #240
sdiw wrote: 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…

Isn't the very fact people eat bats alarming? Who would eat bats voluntarily? They probably don't have much choice there.

In Asia people eat a lot of really weird stuff for us Westerners. I live in Thailand with my Thai girlfriend.

I don't understand why my girlfriend likes to eat various kinds of insects and larva and why people in my village like to eat a pigs' brains. Yesterday my girlfriend showed me a YouTube movie of a Chinese girl eating a live octopus. I also know some people like to eat snakes around here.

Different strokes for different folks and all that.

Post reply on HN