| donathos said: I find it strange to look back on all of this, to try to understand the situation with a bit of perspective. So far as I know, this whole situation is down to one person a few months ago in China, doing what? Eating bat soup or something equally trivial? And the end result will be thousands upon thousands dead, economies crushed (with all of the job loss, foreclosure, depression, etc., that entails), political futures made and destroyed, a new disease perhaps permanently with us bringing permanent changes to our respective cultures. It's hard to know what to take seriously in a world that is so fragile, with lives that teeter on the very edge, not through any choices we personally make, but on the basis of incidental choices made by others we'll never meet, worlds away. I'm not religious, myself, but I understand the appeal: there ought to be some meaning to this madness. |
It's not from eating bat soup, and where it actually started is still unknown. Bets are on Wuhan so far
https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-patients-zero-contracted-case-november-2020-3
The first case of the novel coronavirus emerged on November 17, according to Chinese government data reviewed by the South China Morning Post.
It wasn't until late December that Chinese officials realized they had a new virus on their hands. But even then, China's government clamped down on sharing information about it with the public, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The Post said the data it reviewed, which has not been made public, suggested that the virus was first contracted by a 55-year-old man from China's Hubei province.
But as the newspaper noted, the evidence is not conclusive. The identity of "patient zero" — the first human case of the virus — has still not been confirmed, and it's possible that the data set isn't complete.
However a strange severe pneumonia was already circulating in Northern Italy at the end of November.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3076334/coronavirus-strange-pneumonia-seen-lombardy-november-leading
A “strange pneumonia” was circulating in northern Italy as long ago as November, weeks before doctors were made aware of the novel coronavirus outbreak in China, one of the European country’s leading medical experts said this week.
“They [general practitioners] remember having seen very strange pneumonia, very severe, particularly in old people in December and even November,” Giuseppe Remuzzi, the director of the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan, said in an interview with the National Public Radio of the United States.
“This means that the virus was circulating, at least in [the northern region of] Lombardy and before we were aware of this outbreak occurring in China.”
Which makes sense since with a growth factor of 1.16x on average it would have to have been circulating undetected in Italy since the end of November.
It can happen anywhere. Mad Cow disease started in the UK, Ebola along the Ebola river in the Congo, Swine Flu started in Mexico. Since there are magnitudes more animals then humans viruses have much more playroom to develop among livestock, but it can happen with humans as well. Spanish flu is nothing but a deadlier mutation of the common seasonal flu :/ So it's not from individual choices, it's the choices we as a society make as a whole.
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