A virus will do better when it doesn’t kill its host. It can spread more easily from something alive than dead.
I’m failing to see what point you think you’re making.
You might be right. You might even be the Charlton Heston with a schmeiser star of some video game.
That said, as the single perfect uninfected person left on earth, do you really want to paint sidewalks and streets with human blood?
No, of course not! You’re no sociopath… right?
Germs definitely travel from humans to other animals as well as the other way around. There have been multiple cases of other species becoming infected with Covid-19, and concerns about that. So yes humans are reservoirs that can be sources to infect other species.
There was in fact a hypothesis that it least one variant had been from an animal being infected by a human with Covid-19 and then mutating in the animal population, infecting them, before jumping back to humans.
FWIW.
But it didn’t evolve from them, so that suggestion was completely wrong. Our immune systems have likely already encountered the viruses that are already circulating in humans, so anything that evolves directly from them is less likely to be catastrophic (although it can be, as with flu variants). An important element in how nasty SARS-CoV-2 was is that it crossed species.
Then you can rest assured that nobody is holding bats morally responsible. But the objective facts of the proximate origin of the virus before it first crossed from another species to a human are important, because some of the steps may have involved different species (and people) in close proximity at wet markets.
Sure, it is now, but that doesn’t change where it came from.
My point here, as it was years ago, is that viruses evolve. It is very, very simple evolution. Like it or not, COVID19 is a human virus. It evolved in humans. Yes, you can trace it’s lineage, but there’s a danger there. The danger is in thinking that it is the same virus that infects bats or civets or whatever. It’s not.
Think “bird flu” . Problematic zoonotic infection. Can be deadly, even, But it’s reservoir isn’t human. Whereas COVID19’s reservoir is human. As a virus, it is remarkably successful in it’s infection rate… among humans. Ask yourselves, “How many people do I know that have had COVID and recovered?” I would suspect that number is quite high.
To expand on that a bit, think of the delta variant. There is no way in HELL you can argue that that didn’t evolve in humans.
No, that wasn’t your point. Your point was this, quoting your original post:
Your “hypothesis”, if something you pulled out of your backside with no expert knowledge or evidence deserves that description, was wrong.
“It evolved in humans” seems to be a crude attempt to equivocate between a claim about the origin, and the obvious fact that it continues evolving all the time. It was evolving in bats. Then after it transferred from bats, it continued evolving in humans.
Any danger is entirely in your imagination. Nobody thinks that it is still exactly the same as when it transferred to humans from bats.
One more time, with feeling:
- A virus was evolving in bats.
- Somewhere, possibly via an intermediate host, it transferred from bats to humans.
- It continued evolving in humans.
Focus on the parts in bold about bats. Take your blood pressure meds if you need to. You can keep repeating yourself, or you can fuck off and find something else to obsess about, but these facts won’t change.
It’s almost a non-sequitur, but it’s a setup for a slippery slope.
- Delta (and Omicron and others) mutated in humans
- mumble, mumble, mumble
- COVID came from humans in the first place
- Profit, aka I was right all along!
Delta schmelta … from one of the articles above:
Really not sure you have a coherent point you are making, though.
Reservoir is a matter of perspective, is that it?
I just wanted to mention bats one more time before this thread dies.
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww…
Bats 101 - Bat Conservation International
8 Amazing Bat Facts
- Bats are the only mammal capable of true flight.
- Tequila is produced from agave plants that in the wild rely on bats as their primary pollinators.
- The world’s smallest bat is the Bumblebee Bat measuring up to 29 – 33 mm (1.1 –3 in) in length and 2 g (0.071 oz) in mass as a full-grown adult.
- The world’s largest bat is the Giant Golden-crowned Flying Fox with a wingspan up to 6 ft!
- The oldest known bat was a male Brandt’s myotis who lived at least 41 years.
- The fastest bat in the world is the Mexican Free-tailed Bat, flying in short bursts at speeds up to 100 mph!
- Of the 1,400+ species of bats in the world, only three are vampire bats that drink blood.
- Bracken Cave is the world’s largest bat colony. Located near San Antonio, Texas, USA, this is a summer maternity colony for up to 20 million Mexican Free-tailed Bats.
Aww what adorable little disease vectors!
I have used that exact description for my own children.
One time I was on a hospital elevator during infectious disease rounds with another resident, the attending physician and a mom and her child, who was profusely sneezing. Mother and catarrhic child departed at an interim floor, after which the attending turned to us and said, “A vector.”
Of course the adult, not immunized for pertussis as an adult, with the mild runny nose due to pertussis, is the vector to the baby in elevator …
Although I will share what the ID professor stated to us in med school. “If you have a preschooler in your life just accept the fact that they’re a microscopic layer of snot and poop on every surface, no matter how much you clean.” Paraphrasing of course.
Highly unlikely, unless they’re coughing or sneezing.
Adults also tend to be better about covering their mouths when they sneeze or cough. But not always.
Okay runny nose and sneezes or coughs …
My observation is adults are not very good at that.
Of course the babies were also getting RSV from older children and adults too.
Vectors are not always the cute one in the room is all.