
The Animal Origins of Coronavirus and Flu - bainsfather
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-do-animal-viruses-like-coronavirus-jump-species-20200225/
======
seagullz
An _early 2019_ review paper[0] by Chinese authors has this to say in its
abstract:

During the past two decades, three zoonotic coronaviruses have been identified
as the cause of large-scale disease outbreaks–Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome (SARS), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), and Swine Acute
Diarrhea Syndrome (SADS). SARS and MERS emerged in 2003 and 2012,
respectively, and caused a worldwide pandemic that claimed thousands of human
lives, while SADS struck the swine industry in 2017. They have common
characteristics, such as _they are all highly pathogenic to humans or
livestock, their agents originated from bats, and two of them originated in
China. Thus, it is highly likely that future SARS- or MERS-like coronavirus
outbreaks will originate from bats, and there is an increased probability that
this will occur in China. Therefore, the investigation of bat coronaviruses
becomes an urgent issue for the detection of early warning signs, which in
turn minimizes the impact of such future outbreaks in China._ The purpose of
the review is to summarize the current knowledge on viral diversity, reservoir
hosts, and the geographical distributions of bat coronaviruses in China, and
eventually we aim to predict virus hotspots and their cross-species
transmission potential.

Is this prescient or purely coincidental or something else?

[0]
[https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/11/3/210/htm](https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/11/3/210/htm)

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nexuist
Should be noted that the numbers in the intro are a bit off, the U.S. now has
57 cases.

[https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-
coronavirus...](https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus-
cases/)

~~~
nck4222
Is there any sense for how accurate the case numbers are?

I've been thinking about it and I can't fathom how we would know of every
case.

What percentage of adults who get the seasonal flu go see a doctor and get
diagnosed, 10%? Coronavirus symptoms mimic the flu and can even by
asymptomatic in people, meaning people can easily attribute symptoms to a bad
cold/flu or not even notice them. On average someone with coronavirus spreads
it to 3-4 other people. It's estimated that the virus started infecting people
in early January, but China didn't start quarantining people until 3 weeks
later or so.

I just don't see the math adding up, all it takes is a handful of people not
seeking treatment in order for it to start spreading without our knowledge.
There has to be thousands of additional cases around the world of that just
aren't diagnosed, which is how we're suddenly seeing unexpected diagnoses in
places without any previous outbreak like Iran.

~~~
davidw
We can't even test for it properly in the US right now:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/25/cdc-
coronav...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/25/cdc-coronavirus-
test/)

And yeah, there are going to be a bunch of people here who won't seek help
unless it gets really bad, and who will go to their jobs even if they feel
crummy because they need the money, thus spreading it farther and more
rapidly.

BTW, we were warned: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-
science/the-t...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/the-
trump-administration-is-ill-prepared-for-a-global-
pandemic/2017/04/08/59605bc6-1a49-11e7-9887-1a5314b56a08_story.html)

~~~
mikeyouse
Our healthcare system is really going to bite us here too - people are
extremely hesitant to seek medical care since there's such a crapshoot of
costs that you could pay.

(e.g. the story of the person who was fearful after developing flu systems
after traveling to China so he checked into the ER for testing and got a
$3,500 bill that 'might' be knocked down to $1,400 if he provides 3 years of
medical history to prove it wasn't a preexisting condition:
[https://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-
care/article24047680...](https://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-
care/article240476806.html))

So we have people who don't want to miss work and people who won't seek
medical care unless they're in the later stages of the disease to avoid
thousands of dollars of cost. Hopefully it peters out but this could get
really ugly.

------
hirenj
Fun fact: Coronavirus also recognises sialic acids (but they need an extra
acetylation on top).

Fun fact 2: Sialic acids are important for protecting your gut / balancing the
microbiome.

Fun fact 3: Bats apparently have a much simpler microbiome (less weight,
better flying), and can tolerate low levels of coronavirus infection.

I would bet the closest non-flying relative of a bat would get respiratory
infections too.

~~~
dcolkitt
Bats really do seem to serve as viral reservoirs at an exceptionally high
rate[1]. SARS, MERS, coronavirus and ebola all likely seem to have originated
in bats.

One thing we may have to consider is a policy of bat eradication. At least in
populated areas. It would have some ecological consequences, but the risk of
mass pandemic probably outweighs that cost.

[1][https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=JnBpAgAAQBAJ&oi=...](https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=JnBpAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA195&dq=bats+as+viral+reservoirs&ots=NnUojPhgh5&sig=9eFGutqoVZGppcEs-
SO6hoWfMmg#v=onepage&q=bats%20as%20viral%20reservoirs&f=false)

~~~
triceratops
I don't often say this outright, but that's a dumb idea.

"Insectivorous bats in particular are especially helpful to farmers, as they
control populations of agricultural pests... It has been estimated that bats
save the agricultural industry of the United States anywhere from $3.7 billion
to $53 billion per year in pesticides and damage to crops."[1]

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat#Economics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat#Economics)

~~~
dcolkitt
> It has been estimated that bats save the agricultural industry of the United
> States anywhere from $3.7 billion to $53 billion per year in pesticides and
> damage to crops

In comparison, the coronavirus scare has wiped out $1.5 trillion from US
equity valuations just in the past two days. Even taking the higher end of
that estimate, preventing one coronavirus epidemic every 20 years still passes
cost benefit analysis.

~~~
A4ET8a8uTh0
I do not consider vagaries of the stock market a valid reason to potentially
wipe out an entire species.

More than that, you correctly identify it as a scare, which should be a clear
indication how a short-sighted policy that may be.

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ptah
i thought humans are just another animal. why the surprise about diseases
jumping from other animals to humans

~~~
klmr
There’s no surprise, zoonotic viruses are well known. That said, viruses are
usually highly adapted to a specific host. Jumping host species isn’t trivial,
and the mechanisms for how this happens are worth exploring.

~~~
jacquesm
The bulk of our diseases are zoonotic in nature.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoonosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoonosis)

Has the figure at 61%.

~~~
robbrown451
Sure, but here is a key line from the Wikipedia article you reference: "Most
human diseases originated in other animals; however, only diseases that
routinely involve non-human to human transmission, such as rabies, are
considered direct zoonosis"

You aren't going to catch the current coronavirus from your dog.

~~~
jacquesm
True. But you could catch Rabies.

------
throwGuardian
As with other attempts at sparking discussions on the origin [1], I'm not a
virologist, just a bystander whose curiosity was piqued by the proximity of
the sole lab in all of China that's equipped to handle/research extremely
infectious viruses and that of the outbreak.

My observations (all facts)

1\. Proximity of outbreak to sole advanced virology lab in all of China,
suspicious

2\. Publications (
[https://jvi.asm.org/content/82/4/1899](https://jvi.asm.org/content/82/4/1899)
)from lab suggest they were dealing with CoVid-19 like viruses for a while.

3\. State of China would strongly deny/cover-up the lab to be the cause of
outbreak, even if that did happen. I'm not suggesting they engineered the
virus, just suggesting that they were researching animals with the virus, and
a freak case of violating safety protocol let to the virus leaking to the
nearby seafood market. Again - attributing this to clumsiness, not malice

Given the above, I think an investigative journalist would find the
circumstances fertile enough for a deep investigation. Given how hard it is to
identify patient zero of the outbreak, I think journalists need to go down
this path of investigation

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22424013](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22424013)

~~~
theseadroid
There are US based researches on it already, and the evidence so far is it's
not engineered. Your observations don't include all relevant facts, hence the
conclusion can still be wrong. Like scientists in 18th century had all kind of
weird ideas based on the facts they observed about the world. In today's
world, for most of us, especially non experts on the fields, what really
matters is all the facts out there that we don't know (or chose to ignore).

[http://virological.org/t/the-proximal-origin-of-sars-
cov-2/3...](http://virological.org/t/the-proximal-origin-of-sars-cov-2/398)

