We know well now that the Covid19 virus had its source in bats in the northern city of Wuhan in Hubei Province, China. Some claim it was a Chinese virology lab, Whuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in Hubei Province that may have accidentally permitted the escape of the virus, perhaps as a result of lax safety precautions. Others claim that a near-by “wet market” a live animal meat market—combining the functions of a zoo, chicken coop, aquarium, fish market and abattoir all in one— in an enclosed crowded and unclean place was the source. We do not know for sure. Recently revealed are the cables from the US Embassy in Beijing which warned Washington DC in 2018 regarding the possible risky studies on bat and bat viruses at the WIV.
But we do know that the corona virus strain is very similar to viruses which infect a species of Chinese bats which inhabit caves in northern China. (The Chinese horseshoe bats Rhinolophus affinis). These animals are often kept alive in the so called “wet markets” as food items). It is quite certain from well documented genetic studies of the Covid 19 virus DNA that the original source —the bat virus— evolved from a entity which was capable of infecting bats into a a new virus that evolved surface attributes that permitted it to effectively overcome the barriers in the human cell membrane so as to enter human cells and take over its metabolism and convert that cell material into duplicates of covid19 which are released when the cell dies and go on to infect other hosts. Virologists have even established what physical changes took place in the surface “armaments” of the virus “shell” to make the changes possible.
(Note the origin of that other epidemic—the 2013 SARS epidemic—- is also related back to a Chinese bat, Rhinolophus sinicus also found in north China caves—which is thought to have transmitted the virus to a wild cat —a civit- then to humans. Contact with the bat guano collected in caves as a source of fertilizer may also cause infection. )
What is not known is the route that the virus took to do this. One hypothesis is that a bat- specific coronavirus evolved novel armaments and outer shell characteristics while it inhabited the infected bats. Then —through some natural or human agency-still unknown —this new virus with these now deadly characteristics came to infect a human host —perhaps through respiratory means in a crowded wet market or by handling and eating the infected animal or collecting bat guano. (This hypothesis has been recently—4/18/20) supported by a Cambridge University study of the origins and mutations of the virus over time)
The second hypothesis is that the bat corona virus may have passed on first into a human host by similar means described above—then while in this new host evolved the novel characteristics which could make it more infectious and more deadly. This is an important difference.
And by what ever route it took —-that human host infected 4-5 others and each of those infected 4-5 other etc.etc, etc in a short period from late January to mid April the infections surged to encompass the world and to infect more than 2 million known individuals . Presently (April 16, 2020) there are more than 2 million cases and 136,000 deaths worldwide.
In the present time we do not know which route this corona virus may have taken to become a deadly highly infectious strain now known as Covid 19.
What is troubling about this new information is if hypothesis one is correct, —the virus evolved into a deadly form in bats—then there remains in China- a pool of infected bats which are primed to infect humans again. Practices in China, such as collecting and using bat guano, trapping and caging wild animals which are held in wet markets and sold as common food items in some communities are a Sword of Damocles held over the neck of the human population of this planet threatening repetitive death dealing pandemics and economic disaster.
We can not go back to treating China as if it was a—a favored nation—a nation on the par with France or Germany. China must be held at arms length. I can not conceive of reestablishing flights to China or from China. All those 350,000 students we have here can stay or go home but no more back and forth flights. Those elite CEOs who offshores their factories and our jobs abroad—and the 0.1 percent of the top echelon earners who have fallen victim to the Siren call of the 1.4 billion “customers”” in China have been called like the sailors of Greek myth to their fate. It’s Hades for them. They made their big bucks—in the past— in off shoring their business interests—that encouraged and created this monster of China and hollowed out our middle class and turned our manufacturing centers into dust and rust. Now they must move their business back to the US and rehire the US worker or face the anger of all of us who have suffered through this Covid19 tragedy that is in part their making.
And given the severity of this disease —in three months causing 140,000 painful and ugly deaths—closing down of the world economy as well as the personal other tragedies caused by isolation and fear—untold yet in the level of their effect and their extent at this time —we can not go back to “business as usual”.
There can be no thought of free wheeling travel of old in crowded airports or of packing 350 people from all walks of life and all nations into a narrow flying Petri dish aluminum tubes so they could share body fluids and viruses as they fly from one world city to another. Or can one imagine pilling 2 or 3 thousand people into a floating virus lab called “Ocean Princess” or some other fanciful name which chugs around the world in its top heavy unstable shape to pour out it cargo of virus carriers to share their diseases with innocent inhabitants of port cities all around the world. These are all prescriptions for continued disaster, in heath and in our economic stability.
Can we ignore our southern border, cluster happily cheek by jowl in teeming overcrowded cities or gather safely in huge gymnasiums and ignore social spacing? Not post covid 19.
Not while the dangerous Chinese bats are still flying and carrying the death dealing covid 19.
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