'A common germ pool': The frightening origins of the coronavirus

[JimGinPA]

https://grist.org/climate/a-common-germ-pool-the-frightening-environmental-origins-of-covid-19/?utm_content=buffer3276c&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer&fbclid=IwAR3S1u31sW4UlKvEe9IK1tGpac9D4qiVzopMK1SSdu1tLvr53DLDc72R04o

In November 2002, a 46-year-old man from the Chinese coastal province of Guangdong developed a fever and struggled to breathe. Not much is known about him except that he was a local government official with a wife and daughter. But, as David Quammen writes in his book Spillover, a note in his medical history jumps out: He had recently helped to prepare meals that included chicken, domestic cat, and snake.

This man had one of the earliest suspected cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome, the disease that later became known as SARS. (Quammen doesn’t report whether he survived.) Like COVID-19, the pandemic currently sweeping across the globe, SARS was a coronavirus. And like COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, SARS originally came from animals.

Some 60 percent of the new diseases that crop up around the globe each year are zoonotic — meaning they come from domesticated animals or wildlife. Scientists have found that infectious diseases are now emerging more rapidly than in the past. In the 1950s, some 30 new infectious diseases were reported over the course of the decade, according to a study in the journal Nature. In the 1980s, the number reported jumped to nearly 100. Part of that increase is likely a result of how we are treating the environment.

~snip

SARS originated in bats, likely by way of the mongoose-like civet cat. The Middle East respiratory syndrome known as MERS also came from bats and was passed to humans through camels. It’s too early to say exactly where COVID-19 began, but it likely traveled from bats to scaly anteaters called pangolins to humans. Such species-to-species spillovers are common, and to some degree inevitable.

~snip

Bernstein offered a sobering warning that the coronavirus is not the worst pandemic possible. “We’ve gotten a few shots over the bow here,” he said. “We’ve had SARS, MERS, COVID, HIV. We need to see what nature is trying to tell us here. We need to recognize that we’re playing with fire.”

Much more at link - the article is from last month, but I just saw it & it's very informative & interesting

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. Quammen's book is amazing, and I strongly recommend it.

[roamer65]

2. Population reduction would mitigate the problem.

Less people to invade habitats to which we do not belong.

We are killing this planet.

[Thekaspervote]

3. Agree

[LisaM]

4. That is such a solid argument.

I remember the ZPG movement. I've done my part. I have not had any kids, though I would have dearly loved to have. I don't know how to get the message across.

[Recursion]

5. The US has been below replacement for about 50 years now (nt)

[LisaM]

7. We aren't distributed correctly.

The coastal cities are too full while beautiful cities like Detroit are well under capacity.

[Duppers]

6. K & R to counter RW talking points.

Thanks for posting this.