- cross-posted to:
- news@hexbear.net
- cross-posted to:
- news@hexbear.net
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Link to the study https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(25)00353-8
Article is paywalled, so thanks for posting the actual study. This section seems in direct conflict with the article’s title:
Given the … clear evidence that the epicenter of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic was at one of only four markets in Wuhan that sold live wildlife from plausible intermediate host mammal species, either the closest-inferred ancestor or the direct ancestor of SARS-CoV-2 likely moved from an area in or around Yunnan province, to Hubei province, via the wild and farmed animal trade.
In sum, the study doesn’t challenge that Covid-19 originated in Wuhan; but instead, explores the genetic backgrounds of the bats with the closest links to Covid-19.
Ah so it was a leak from the biggest bioweapon lab of all, the natural world where things evolve to kill other things.
I’m not going to comment on the wildlife food trade in China because I don’t know that much about it, but just wanted to point out that nearly all of history’s worst diseases have something to do with humans wanting to eat meat. And it’s happening again with that new bird flu we’re completely unprepared for. Might be something to look into if we’re concerned about humanity going extinct from a global pandemic ¯\(ツ)/¯
Nearly all of history’s worst diseases have come from animals, and animals have those diseases whether we eat them or not. Factory farming certainly enhances the danger, but cows don’t stop existing just because we don’t eat beef. There is, however, also an upside to meat consumption: being around/eating animals all the time also builds up your immune system’s defenses against diseases that originate in those animals. See: indigenous people in the Americas dying in droves to diseases they had no immunity to because they didn’t farm/ranch animals. I mean and also the smallpox blankets, but you get my point.
cows don’t stop existing just because we don’t eat beef.
Humans need to go close to the infected animal to get infected.
being around/eating animals all the time also builds up your immune system’s defenses against diseases that originate in those animals
Oh, so being exposed to new viruses reduces the risk of dying to a virus you got … because you were exposed to it?
Humans need to go close to the infected animal to get infected.
To some extent yes, but ‘get close to’ is pretty broad: breathe contaminated air in the general vicinity of animals, drink water they’ve pissed or shit in, etc.
Oh, so being exposed to new viruses reduces the risk of dying to a virus you got … because you were exposed to it?
That is in fact how a vaccine/our immune system works, yes.
breathe contaminated air in the general vicinity of animals, drink water they’ve pissed or shit in, etc.
Don’t go near animals. Boil water before drinking. Simple as.
That is in fact how a vaccine/our immune system works, yes.
Vaccines work using either diluted toxins, or increasingly, proteins / RNA that just look somewhat like the real thing. The immune system works by enough of the population dying off until only those with the necessary mutations are left.
Don’t go near animals.
Animals breathe, just like we do, they can expel airborne viruses that can travel for hundreds, perhaps even thousands of miles. ‘Don’t go near animals’ is like saying ‘just don’t get wet’ in a rain storm: the world is full of animals and they utterly suffuse every aspect of our life in ways that might surprise you.
Vaccines work using either diluted toxins
I don’t know what ‘diluted toxins’ has to do with viruses and immunology since toxins are a rather different matter entirely, but vaccines work (the non-mRNA ones anyway) by infecting you with a weakened version of the virus so that your immune system can learn to identify it without it overwhelming you. Once it learns to identify that disease it will know how to produce proteins and such that can attack the full version (same DNA) should you ever come across it.
The immune system works by enough of the population dying off until only those with the necessary mutations are left.
Let me state in the sincerest possible terms: lolwut?
It’s not about mutation, the immune system can ‘learn’ and ‘evolve’ over the course of a single human’s lifetime (see: the description of how vaccines work above), it’s not something that you either have a good one or you don’t (autoimmune diseases aside) and the people with bad ones don’t live long enough to reproduce or whatever, your immune system - like your brain - learns by exposure. So being exposed to those diseased animals is literally the only means by which to become immune to them. Viruses do mutate pretty quickly though, so you get the occasional plague/pandemic that overwhelms people’s immune systems when they change enough to not be recognizable to our immune system anymore.
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If the virus originated in a wide area around Yunnan/Hubei (the latter of which is where Wuhan is) then it seems pretty unlikely that it came from a single source within Wuhan, right? I agree that the headline might be a bit ambiguous, but it’s like saying ‘It came from all over Texas’ vs ‘It came specifically from El Paso.’ But I haven’t read the study myself.
