It's the bats

unconfirmed rumors say that the Wuhan pneumonia originated in a market that sold wild animals, and that the virus came from bats.



Weibo has an interesting article about the disussion about eating bats on the Chinese internet: there is a backlash against eating wild game.

in contrast, this article in ScienceDaily claims that the virus originated in snakes... sort of:

By conducting a detailed genetic analysis of the virus and comparing it with available genetic information on different viruses from various geographic locations and host species, the investigators concluded that the 2019-nCoV appears to be a virus that formed from a combination of a coronavirus found in bats and another coronavirus of unknown origin.

The resulting virus developed a mix or "recombination" of a viral protein that recognizes and binds to receptors on host cells. Such recognition is key to allowing viruses to enter host cells, which can lead to infection and disease. Finally, the team uncovered evidence that the 2019-nCoV likely resided in snakes before being transmitted to humans. Recombination within the viral receptor-binding protein may have allowed for cross-species transmission from snake to humans.

So do the Chinese eat snakes? (Pioneers out west used to eat rattle snake meat in the USA, so why not).

But of course, in poor areas, people eat anything.

I remember my adopted son telling me a story about when one of the horses of the rich rancher fell off a cliff. Later, the locals went down and harvested meat from the carcase.

When I asked why they did that, my son advised me: Mom, sometimes you get weak and just want to eat meat.

Same here in the Philippines, where extra dogs are eaten (not pets, usually extra puppies). And in Africa, they eat local rats (field mice but larger) and in South America, guinea pigs are domesticated to eat, not raised as pets.

Again, the German nuns I worked with in Africa related people eating dogs and cats toward the end of the war when famine was widespread.

and of course, in the USA, not only is hunting deer/elk/bear a sport, but locals ate possum pie.

the problem with eating wild game in China (or monkeys, aka "bush meat" in Africa, or dog meat here in the Philippines) is not because it is eaten by hungry country folk, but that it has become an exotic food for the more affluent.

Of course, vegetarians would insist we shouldn't eat meat at all, but until they get a GM meat from cloned animal muscle, you have to realize that humans are omnivores and restricting meat/eggs/dairy/etc is not really healthy.

one note: a lot of human disease originated from domestic animals, but I was bemused when some lecturers on ancient history insisted that this did not occur in hunter gatherers. I wonder however if hunter gatherers just died off from such diseases, but the low population density made the spread of the disease less likely.

as for eating insects: sorry, bub, but these were not a daily food: just a seasonal one to supplement the diet. And one wonders how many diseases are spread by eating bugs?