Re:For experts who study coronaviruses, a grim vindication
by albntomat0 on Monday June 08, 2020 @11:55AM
(#23457699)
What's the baseline for similar predictions from credible sources? In retrospect, that's spot on, but we can't evaluate past prioritization without knowing how many other equally credible dire predictions were made that haven't panned out.
Re:For experts who study coronaviruses, a grim vindication
by oasisbob on Monday June 08, 2020 @12:06PM
(#23457799)
In other words, you think someone in China ate a bat and made the world sick?
Re:For experts who study coronaviruses, a grim vindication
by maemilius on Monday June 08, 2020 @01:16PM
(#23458483)
My understanding of the extant research is that SARS-CoV-2 jumped from bats to pangolins to humans in wet markets in China that sold "farmed" wildlife.
In short, yes. Wet, wildlife markets in China were the source of this outbreak.
The entire quote which this article branches on reads:
> “The presence of a large reservoir of SARS-CoV-like viruses in horseshoe bats, together with the culture of eating exotic animals in southern China, is a time bomb.”
I'd say that the second part of that statement carries more importance then the exact type of virus and the specific research on that type.
I'm no virologist, but if the barrage of news from the last few months have taught me anything, it's that the actions of humans are a big factor in increasing the probability of any type of outbreak. Sure, researching specific families and types of viruses gives us valuable insights. But in and of themselves, tying that knowledge into a larger interdisciplinary framework and translating that then into socio-economic policies, safety guidelines, legal frameworks,... is really important.
Going back to the quote above, this Vox piece does a great job explaining that side of the equation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPpoJGYlW54