Posted on 02/07/2020 11:45:57 AM PST by BenLurkin
The coronavirus is similar to two viruses that circulate in bats, but it might have skipped through another species before infecting humans.
Suspicion has fallen on the pangolin, an endangered, highly trafficked creature that looks like a cross between an anteater and an armadillo. Its scales are prized in traditional Chinese medicine, although they’re made of keratin, just like fingernails. In recent days some researchers have noted that a coronavirus previously identified in pangolins is more closely related to the novel coronavirus than any virus identified so far.
It’s not clear whether any bats or pangolins, live or dead, were on sale in December at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, where more than half of the people first identified with the virus had shopped. And it’s possible that the viral leap into humans occurred somewhere else, as some early cases occurred in people with no known link to it.
…
“Why it’s occurring now is really a mystery,” said Perlman. “You have people being around bats forever, eating bats and buying them in markets. Why did it take until December 2019?”
If the species that facilitated the jump from bats to humans is really a pangolin, that could complicate the search for its origins, said Benjamin Neuman, a virologist at Texas A&M at Texarkana who is also in the Coronavirus Study Group.
“If the illegal animal trade was at the root of this outbreak, it is going to be really difficult to trace, and I suspect most of the evidence is gone already — destroyed or spread out across the black market,”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Global warming! Anthropomorphic climate change! Socialism must be implemented immediately!
NOTE TO SELF:
DO NOT EAT BATS OR PANGOLINS......
Damn I was looking forward to some bat and pangolin pasta in a cream sauce tonight!
That sounds kinda good.
The the WaPo is saying this, it’s Chinese government propaganda.
Penguins? Why would anyone eat penguins?
~Emily Litella
“oh, wait. never mind.”
~Emily Litella
I’ll have an everything pizza, hold the bats and pangolins,
with extra Jalapenos.
.
Pay no attention to the HIV DNA inserts. Your bats if you do.
certainly looks tasty. Lobsters aren’t that pretty either, or crawfish.
Mmm.... Pangolin....
Yep.
my wife could probably make a good pangolin pasta, just shred some pulled pangolin over some tortelini and cover the whole thing with alfredo sauce. I’d eat it. It would probably pair well with an unoaked chardonnay.
...likely came from the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory located in Zhengdian Scientific Park of Wuhan Institute of Virology, CAS in Jiangxia District, Wuhan, Hubei Province.
There, fixed it.
That would explain why only Chinese people get sick from it, right?
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