Bats and Pangolins

[dan_bgblue]

Mexican beer virus vector (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200326144342.htm)

[KSRBEvans]

Add "Pangolins" to the list of words and phrases I never heard until the coronavirus* pandemic.



*--Yes, including "coronavirus."

[MickintheHam]

Add "Pangolins" to the list of words and phrases I never heard until the coronavirus* pandemic.



*--Yes, including "coronavirus."

Ol Dan teaching our Continuing Education Class.

[PedroDaGr8]

Mexican beer virus vector (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200326144342.htm)

I've discussed the evolution of this virus previously.

At this time, we do not know if the similar spike protein in the pangolin coronaviruses is a direct link to the current virus or if it is a case of convergent evolution.


The spike protein alone is not sufficient to explain the increased virulence in human.
Some bat viruses are FAR more similar to the current SARS-CoV-2 than any found in pangolins to date but none show the spike protein mutations.
There are modes of evolution in which the bat coronavirus could mutate, over a series of steps, to first infect humans and then become the current coronavirus.


There is a lot of research being done and a lot more will be done in the future. Unfortunately, China will stand in the way of ALL of it if they can.

As for HIV-1: Most people in the scientific community scoffed at the HIV-1 comparison. There is nothing about how this infects that indicates any similarities to HIV-1 even if there are some structural similarities. There needs to be a mechanistic reason to make the structural similarities important. (i.e. provides an explanation for unexplained infection modes, provides a more detailed picture, etc.) Otherwise, it would be like saying a car tire and a doughnut share structural similarities therefore they must do the same thing.

[CitizenBBN]

The fact that China is actively preventing research and learning on this front, and many others, screams of their guilt and greed.

They didn't create it as a bioweapon, but I do think they let it out of their lab by mistake and then covered it up, and knowingly allowed foreign travel to continue even when they knew what was in fact spreading among the population. Whether they did that b/c of short sighted PR or b/c they at that point were buying up the world's supply of PPE and consciously wanted it to become a pandemic so they could profit financially and in their foreign relations positioning I can't say, but they for sure knew what was going on and did nothing to stop it from getting out globally for several weeks.

It seems increasingly obvious this is a bat borne virus that got out of that lab due to faulty procedures. The circumstantial evidence is mounting quickly.