@CZroe come on, you specifically said bats for consumption.
No. I clearly supported what destrekor was saying that the
proximity to people and other animals in a wet market is often how viruses jump between species and reminded him that the reason for their close proximity was still largely because of demand for consumption.
There need be no bat consumption for zoonotic transfer.
The thing is, those wet markets are full of live pigs and birds and pangolins and bats... for consumption. They are in much closer proximity to each other and to humans than they ever would be naturally.
See?
And kept insinuating that Chinese eating bats was the first transmission of SARS-CoV-2.
I did not say that patient zero got sick by eating a bat. destrekor and I weren't even specifically talking about SARS-CoV-2, with plenty of references to "eventual zoonotic transfer" and how often these transfers happen. It baffles me that you could have even thought we were talking specifically about SARS-CoV-2 from what I said.
I said zoonotic transfer can happen with other animals or even humans due to proximity. I said that proximity in wet markets was driven by demand and that the demand was largely from consumption. In other words: It didn't have to come directly from eating bats for that behavior to have some bearing. It's that behavior that causes vendors to keep live bats near pangolins, civet cats, chickens, pigs, etc.
Not only did I never insinuate that happened in Wuhan, I went on to lay out alternative scenarios that don't involve eating bats, including researchers:
Also, the reassortment is just as likely to happen in a person that gets it directly from an animal while also infected with a human virus in which case it is much more likely to gain a trait that allows it to spread person-to-person (human and animal virus infect the same cell; out pops a novel combination of the two).
Works the other way around too... a researcher studying bat coronaviruses could, through handling, accidentally infect the bat with a human coronavirus. That virus reassorts with the bat's coronavirus to give the bat coronavirus just what it needs to spread from person-to-person and, thus, a new human-transmissable bat coronavirus is born.
See? "...bat coronavirus
es"
When asked why he's peddling "conspiracy" theories, Senator Tom Cotton rebutted with the "it's certainly possible" excuse. Yes, since we don't know the first transmission for a fact, any of many theories is possible. Some more plausible than others.
If you have any evidence that bats were consumed at Huanan market, by all means provide it to us. Read your own last few posts, don't walk back the argument now. I never insinuated the Huanan market only sells seafood, that's just the name of the place. Like I already conceded, the Chinese are well known for eating anything that moves.
If all you're trying to suggest is that zoonotic transfer of SARS-CoV-2 to humans was from bats to some unknown other animal (meat), then YES that's exactly what experts are claiming. That's a different statement from humans eating bats at an unnamed Chinese wet market. And I agree, from what we know of the places, they are filthy and disgusting beyond our belief.
I don't know why you keep bringing up Tom Cotton. I never said patient zero ate bats. I never said it was a lab accident. I never said it was a bio weapon. I wasn't even talking about "it." Before you interjected and mischaracterized what I said, all I did was tell destrekor that there were more possibilities/scenarios. You interpreted what I said 100% backwards and made a knee-jerk response about SARS-CoV-2 and that specific wet market that neither of us were talking about. We were talking about how zoonotic transfer can happen in general, past, present, and future.
...but if you insist on forcing me to discuss how this is relevant to SARS-CoV-2 even more: Many official Chinese sources say it was from the wet market and it was likely from bats. Some Chinese sources, such as the report from South China University Technical Institute, go even further and point to the lab 280 meters away from the market. They can both be true, actually, especially if it's another case of lab animals being sold at local markets. Heck, they can both be total BS, since the person they considered to be patient zero had no contact with the seafood market. May not even be the real patient zero. My entire point with destrekor was that we might be too narrow when discussing possibilities even as they relate to consumption vs. proximity.
Now, China temporarily banned the consumption of wildlife and cracked down on labs to prevent the sale/mishandling of waste animals AFTER the outbreak. They also made an example out of Dr. Li Ning (12 year sentence handed down in January). Obviously, they can see the possibilities and danger of allowing this to continue whether or not they believe something similar happened here. I see no reason why we can't discuss the possibility of this kind of thing creating new outbreaks.
I'm glad we could clear this up.