The Animal Origins of Coronavirus and Flu

An <i>early 2019</i> review paper[0] by Chinese authors has this to say in its abstract:<p>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 <i>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.</i> 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.<p>Is this prescient or purely coincidental or something else?<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mdpi.com&#x2F;1999-4915&#x2F;11&#x2F;3&#x2F;210&#x2F;htm" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mdpi.com&#x2F;1999-4915&#x2F;11&#x2F;3&#x2F;210&#x2F;htm</a>

Should be noted that the numbers in the intro are a bit off, the U.S. now has 57 cases.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bnonews.com&#x2F;index.php&#x2F;2020&#x2F;02&#x2F;the-latest-coronavirus-cases&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bnonews.com&#x2F;index.php&#x2F;2020&#x2F;02&#x2F;the-latest-coronavirus...</a>

Fun fact: Coronavirus also recognises sialic acids (but they need an extra acetylation on top).<p>Fun fact 2: Sialic acids are important for protecting your gut &#x2F; balancing the microbiome.<p>Fun fact 3: Bats apparently have a much simpler microbiome (less weight, better flying), and can tolerate low levels of coronavirus infection.<p>I would bet the closest non-flying relative of a bat would get respiratory infections too.

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

As with other attempts at sparking discussions on the origin [1], I&#x27;m not a virologist, just a bystander whose curiosity was piqued by the proximity of the sole lab in all of China that&#x27;s equipped to handle&#x2F;research extremely infectious viruses and that of the outbreak.<p>My observations (all facts)<p>1. Proximity of outbreak to sole advanced virology lab in all of China, suspicious<p>2. Publications ( <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jvi.asm.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;82&#x2F;4&#x2F;1899" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jvi.asm.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;82&#x2F;4&#x2F;1899</a> )from lab suggest they were dealing with CoVid-19 like viruses for a while.<p>3. State of China would strongly deny&#x2F;cover-up the lab to be the cause of outbreak, even if that did happen. I&#x27;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<p>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<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=22424013" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=22424013</a>