Super good article. How China’s “Bat Woman” Hunted Down Viruses from SARS to the New Coronavirus

[spin_dry]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-chinas-bat-woman-hunted-down-viruses-from-sars-to-the-new-coronavirus1/%3famp=true

[AKIQPilot]

That was a long but very informative read. What an incredible perspective. That describes what the beginning of this virus looked like in Wuhan. 

[spin_dry]

Just now, AKIQPilot said:

That was a long but very informative read. What an incredible perspective. That describes what the beginning of this virus looked like in Wuhan. 

That would be such a rewarding profession. These pathogens fascinate me. 

[Skidude600]

Very interesting read.

[Highmark]

The world needs to punish China over this.  Fuck them.  

[Skidude600]

If I read that article right, there is a concern with any bat exposure, regardless of the country. 

[Highmark]

Sounds to me extermination of bats in some areas would be helpful.

In Shitou Cave—where painstaking scrutiny has yielded a natural genetic library of bat viruses—the team discovered a coronavirus strain in 2013 that came from horseshoe bats and had a genomic sequence that was 97 percent identical to the one found in civets in Guangdong. The finding concluded a decade-long search for the natural reservoir of the SARS coronavirus.

In many bat dwellings Shi has sampled, including Shitou Cave, “constant mixing of different viruses creates a great opportunity for dangerous new pathogens to emerge,” says Ralph Baric, a virologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. And in the vicinity of such viral melting pots, Shi says, “you don’t need to be a wildlife trader to be infected.”

Near Shitou Cave, for example, many villages sprawl among the lush hillsides in a region known for its roses, oranges, walnuts and hawthorn berries. In October 2015 Shi’s team collected blood samples from more than 200 residents in four of those villages. It found that six people, or nearly 3 percent, carried antibodies against SARS-like coronaviruses from bats—even though none of them had handled wildlife or reported SARS-like or other pneumonia-like symptoms. Only one had travelled outside of Yunnan prior to sampling, and all said they had seen bats flying in their village.

Three years earlier, Shi’s team had been called in to investigate the virus profile of a mineshaft in Yunnan’s mountainous Mojiang County—famous for its fermented Pu’er tea—where six miners suffered from pneumonialike diseases (two of them died). After sampling the cave for a year the researchers discovered a diverse group of coronaviruses in six bat species. In many cases, multiple viral strains had infected a single animal, turning it into a flying factory of new viruses.

“The mineshaft stunk like hell,” says Shi, who went in with her colleagues wearing a protective mask and clothing. “Bat guano, covered in fungus, littered the cave.” Although the fungus turned out to be the pathogen that had sickened the miners, she says it would only have been a matter of time before they caught the coronaviruses if the mine had not been promptly shut.

Edited March 16, 2020 by Highmark

[Highmark]

Possibly all started with one person.   That's why this will be hard to stop.

“This suggests the viruses share a common ancestor,” Baric says. The data also point to a single introduction into humans followed by sustained human-to-human transmission, researchers say.

[spin_dry]

13 minutes ago, Highmark said:

Possibly all started with one person.   That's why this will be hard to stop.

“This suggests the viruses share a common ancestor,” Baric says. The data also point to a single introduction into humans followed by sustained human-to-human transmission, researchers say.

Agreed. Which is why it’s important the flatten the rate of infection. There’s a very good chance that virtually everyone is going to get this. Slowing down the infection rate will take a load off the healthcare system. Over time viruses also begin to lose their punch. 

[Highmark]

7 minutes ago, spin_dry said:

Agreed. Which is why it’s important the flatten the rate of infection. There’s a very good chance that virtually everyone is going to get this. Slowing down the infection rate will take a load off the healthcare system. Over time viruses also begin to lose their punch. 

The people who study these things know immediately when a virus is of extreme concern.   They were extremely concerned in China by late December....my guess earlier than that.   That region and travel in and out of it should have been haulted immediately.   Thank God Trump did something regarding travel from China by end of January.....even in the face of being labeled a racists.    This one has changed the world dramatically.  

BEIJING—The mysterious patient samples arrived at Wuhan Institute of Virology at 7 P.M. on December 30, 2019. Moments later, Shi Zhengli’s cell phone rang. It was her boss, the institute’s director. The Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention had detected a novel coronavirus in two hospital patients with atypical pneumonia, and it wanted Shi’s renowned laboratory to investigate. If the finding was confirmed, the new pathogen could pose a serious public health threat—because it belonged to the same family of bat-borne viruses as the one that caused severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a disease that plagued 8,100 people and killed nearly 800 of them between 2002 and 2003. “Drop whatever you are doing and deal with it now,” she recalls the director saying.

Edited March 16, 2020 by Highmark

[spin_dry]

1 minute ago, Highmark said:

The people who study these things know immediately when a virus is of extreme concern.   They were extremely concerned in China by late December....my guess earlier than that.   That region and travel in and out of it should have been haulted immediately.   Thank God Trump did something regarding travel from China by end of January.....even in the face of being labeled a racists.    

BEIJING—The mysterious patient samples arrived at Wuhan Institute of Virology at 7 P.M. on December 30, 2019. Moments later, Shi Zhengli’s cell phone rang. It was her boss, the institute’s director. The Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention had detected a novel coronavirus in two hospital patients with atypical pneumonia, and it wanted Shi’s renowned laboratory to investigate. If the finding was confirmed, the new pathogen could pose a serious public health threat—because it belonged to the same family of bat-borne viruses as the one that caused severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a disease that plagued 8,100 people and killed nearly 800 of them between 2002 and 2003. “Drop whatever you are doing and deal with it now,” she recalls the director saying.

Yeah for sure. Trump will be known as the guy that saved the world. Just ask him.  

[Highmark]

Just now, spin_dry said:

Yeah for sure. Trump will be known as the guy that saved the world. Just ask him.  

No he won't but without question he may have given us some time.

[ford_428cj]

2 hours ago, Highmark said:

The world needs to punish China over this.  Fuck them.  

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