
Detection of novel coronaviruses in bats in Myanmar - OrgNet
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0230802
======
pengaru
A speculative theory backed by purely circumstantial evidence gathered online
of covid-19's origin is that chinese researchers investigating coronaviruses
in bats working near the wet market in Wuhan had an accident and became
infected, one who apparently disappeared and has been presumed dead.

I don't know if that's pure conspiracy theory nonsense, but it certainly seems
risky to be doing this kind of thing:

> Free-ranging bats were captured, and rectal and oral swabs and guano samples
> collected for coronaviral screening

Especially considering the potential for asymptomatic spread...

~~~
__s
How do you suggest research be done?

~~~
pengaru
With great care and from a distance.

If we're manually catching and swabbing wild bat rectums, I don't think we're
doing a good job of keeping a distance, especially considering how far
technology has progressed.

~~~
throwanem
Humans and bats aren't going to stop interacting, not least because guano is
an excellent fertilizer and the easiest way to get it is by giving bats
incentives to defecate over your fields.

That being so, and given the utter implausibility of bat-butthole-swabbing
robots or whatever, would you rather we had people taking the negligible
additional risk of doing this kind of research, so that we have a chance of
being able to prepare in advance for the arrival of zoonoses like SARS-CoV-2?
Or would you rather be taken by surprise?

Going by the current state of affairs in the world, I have to say that being
taken by surprise seems to have very little to recommend it.

------
natch
Bats migrate. Migration brings species into contact with one another. (Even
indirect contact such as sharing the same water source). With species in
contact, viruses can spread. All this is perfectly normal.

What’s new here is that climate is changing, causing migration patterns to
change, causing new interactions between species that previously did not
interact. Some of which are eventually brought into contact with humans. Again
none of this is new either, except for the climate change part. All of this
could and did happen already without climate change, but climate change can
turn things up a few notches by making migration pattern changes much more
wide ranging than before.

So essentially what I am saying is it seems plausible that Covid-19 and its
hit on the economy is one of the first “gifts” of global climate change. This
seems to be right in front of our noses, but unnoticed by the whole world.

~~~
seibelj
Climate change is one of those issues where you can draw a line between any
problem and it. Maybe someone just ate an infected bat? Or got bit by a live
infected bat? Seems way more probable.

~~~
natch
True, to your first part. Question is, how did the bat come to be where it
was.

The flip side of being able to draw lines to climate change is that there’s a
reason you can draw lines to it, namely the underlying reality that it touches
just about everything, meaning it could in fact be playing a role.

Obviously it’s not conclusive though.

This may turn out to be one of the recurring themes of climate change linked
problems: they are linkable in theory, but in practice it’s hard to be
conclusive. With this theme continuing on for the next few centuries of human
history as more problems emerge.

------
throwanem
A recent interview with the last author, Dr. Jonna Mazet, former director of
the pandemic intelligence project disestablished by the current administration
in September 2019: [https://katz.substack.com/p/audio-edition-the-pandemic-
preve...](https://katz.substack.com/p/audio-edition-the-pandemic-prevention)

------
gus_massa
Note that coronavirus is a big family of virus, only a few (2?) are
transmisible from human to human and also potentially deadly for humans. Most
of the virus in the coronavirus family don´t infect humans or are not harmful.
You may get just a normal cold, and you are fine a week later.

They found 6 new versions of coronavirus, but IIUC they are not harmful for
humans. This is business as usual.

~~~
omgwtfbyobbq
FEIW, there are at least four common coronaviruses (229E, NL63, OC43, and
HKU1) that humans transmit, and based on the CDC's language there are other
less common ones.

[https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/general-
information.html](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/general-information.html)

~~~
throwanem
The larger point is that coronaviruses as a family are unusually good at
mutation and recombination, especially in the facilitating environment of
bats, which typically have a high viral load. That makes them of particular
concern as a potential source of novel infectious diseases in humans.

------
acd
Does bats have covid19 immunity serum?

~~~
EamonnMR
The answer is even more fascinating then that:
[https://get21stnight.com/2020/03/30/why-do-we-keep-
getting-d...](https://get21stnight.com/2020/03/30/why-do-we-keep-getting-
diseases-from-bats/)

~~~
kbrisso
Interesting article thanks.

