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Comment by riyadparvez | Hacker News Reader

In preparation of stopping next pandemic, maybe we should have an international agreement like Paris climate change agreement. Like climate change and nuclear weapons this is an existential risk.

Yes, outbreak of zootonic diseases is still possible through widely consumed firm animals (chickens, pigs, or cows). But we can dramatically reduce the risk of next pandemic if we stop eating exotic wild animals like bats, which is not hard to give up. We may have been able to stop outbreak of COVID-19 on the first place if we had learned our lessons from SARS outbreak and stopping eating exotics animals.

EDIT: bat was used as an example. You can replace any exotic animals in place of bats, the point still stands. This video touches on the topic of outbreak of coronavirus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPpoJGYlW54

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Is there any evidence whatsoever that the current coronavirus outbreak was due to eating exotic animals.

Yes, the press has reported that a market in Wuhan sold exotic animals, but it seems this is uncorroborated, and after asking an acquaintance in Wuhan about it, I was told it's fake news, and that said market sells farmed animals as far as she's ever seen.

Well, it's linked to bats (like many such illnesses). One of the biggest exposures to these animals is at such markets, so whether or not this particular outbreak is traced to a particular market is less important than generally lowering exposure.

The Chinese government appears to be trying very hard to not be blamed for it and is spreading fake news of their own, which is what your acquaintance may be telling you.

Animals are absolutely a primary vector for infectious disease. No, there's no definitive evidence as of yet of patient 0, though the cluster of early cases in China had strong connections to the wet market in Wuhan. It's not necessarily the eating of the animals directly, but indirectly – because wild animals are kept stressed, in cages, next to other domesticated animals and people.

Even with conventional animal agriculture, things like bird flu and swine flu are a serious threat.

> Yes, the press has reported that a market in Wuhan sold exotic animals, but it seems this is uncorroborated, and after asking an acquaintance in Wuhan about it, I was told it's fake news, and that said market sells farmed animals as far as she's ever seen.

Fake news, seriously? There's an entire wikipedia article about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huanan_Seafood_Wholesale_Marke.... Please verify your own news source before spreading more fake news/

MERS has camels as hosts, is the deadliest by far and 1) camels are not exotic in the Middle East 2) you don’t need to eat it to be infected.

Although MERS is more deadly than SARS-CoV-2, it looks it's less transmissible between people than SARS-CoV-2. I heard an epidemiologist theorize that it might be because people infected with SARS-CoV-2 shed the virus before they show any signs of COVID.

Maybe that's why MERS never spread widely outside of areas where camels don't exist widely.

Yeah, plus dead people tend to not socialize a lot.

The Paris Climate Agreement should definitely not be the template. It has zero teeth and is hardly aggressive enough to hit its own targets.

I thought that the bat soup origin was debunked. I'd suspect it's pretty rare that you come across a novel virus that's hardy enough to survive cooking at temperature and then the rigors of the human GI tract.

It was from a wet market, and was probably contracted during the butchering process, not during consumption.

SARS-CoV-2 virus is zoonotic for sure, question is only what kind of animal was immediate host and what was mode of transition. It didn't have to be eating, might as well have been transmission of body fluid like mucus while hunting or cutting meat.

I don't know anything about the likelihood of the bat origin theory, but it wouldn't have to pass through the gut. It could pass from mucous, saliva, or other secretion, or internal fluids/tissues. If it got on a surface at any point during processing, either the people handling the animal or someone else could transfer it to their own noise/eyes/mouth just by accident.

that's a great point. thanks for the corrective.

> I thought that the bat soup origin was debunked

Bat soup was used as an example. It would help the discussion if we stop taking everything in the most literal way possible.

You didn't use it as an example, I was recalling from the initial theories when "coronavirus" was making the news.

It would also be helpful to the discussion if "we" stopped casting broad nets and making sweeping generalizations without specifics and context.

"Eating exotic animals" has no real meaning. Bats may not be exotic in that region. Additionally, you specifically said "eating" and, so, my comment was specifically directed at the consumption of animals. In that case, cattle (not "exotic" in my region) can carry bovine spongiform encephalopathy which _can_ survive ingestion (most likely CNS tissues). So, when dealing with science-y sort of things, making generalizations in order to support an opinion, you're basically opening yourself up to people (like myself) who desire specificity and factual support.

As was mentioned in an erudite child comment, the most likely form of transmission was in the preparation of the foodstuff, so if you believe that more caution should be exercised, then you'd get no complaints from me.

> if we stop eating exotic wild animals like bats, which is not hard to give up

That seems a very first world-centric point of view.

Isn't the eating of such animals partially driven by cultural culinary preferences, and partially driven by the availability of such foods (eg. unable to afford beef or chicken, but can afford the next best thing).

Yeah, people don't eat bushmeat and from the garbage can because they choose to - they have (or feel they have) no other choice.

Exotic animals are not something poor people eat because they can't afford. It's absolutely the other way around. Exotic meats are mostly consumed by the powerful people as delicacies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushmeat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildlife_trafficking_and_emerg...

I have no doubt that there are cases of wealthy people consuming exotic meat as a delicacy, but I would bet pound for pound it is largely people in poorer regions without much alternative.

Unfortunately I'm looking for real stats but am having trouble as most of the trade does not keep records, is illegal, etc

1. It's unlikely that this coronavirus was caused by the consumption of bats. It is more likely that it was transmitted through an intermediate host such as pangolin.

2. A very small minority of people in China consume exotic food not because they are cheap, but because they are more expensive and were considered prestigious.

3. There is now a very strong pushbacks against this culture from both the Chinese government and the vast majority of the Chinese people.

It's also not actually sound to begin with. MERS was transmitted to humans from camels, which are not exotic at all in the middle east. Livestock frequently interacts with wild animals, and this isn't really preventable, especially against bats. Worse yet, livestock is generally kept in large groups in close proximity to each other, and once slaughtered is distributed quickly and widely. While it doesn't get the same media coverage, it is not that uncommon for diseased meat to make it into the food supply. While meat inspection practices go a long way to help, they for obvious reasons have a hard time dealing with new diseases.

I specifically mentioned that

> Yes, outbreak of zootonic diseases is still possible through widely consumed firm animals (chickens, pigs, or cows). But we can dramatically reduce the risk of next pandemic if we stop eating exotic wild animals like bats, which is not hard to give up.

Washing your hands is not going to stop every single disease on the earth, but it'll reduce the risk. What exactly is the unsound part here?

The idea that a policy attempting to stop the consumption of wild animals would dramatically reduce the risk of a pandemic isn't sound. Most foodborne zoonotic outbreaks come from livestock, particularly in cases of newly developed farmland encroaching on wild animals, and transmission to livestock does not present a significant barrier for a Novel Coronavirus or other pandemic disease. H5N1 for example spreads to humans predominantly via poultry. The Chinese government also already discourages the consumption of such animals, and it is unlikely that further policy would have much impact, and the political effort could be much better spent elsewhere.

It's not a harmful proposal or anything, I just don't think it would have much impact, and it fixates excessively on the particulars of two specific outbreaks.

> stop eating exotic wild animals

You're probably referring to the youtube disinformation that has been trotted around by right-wing media outlets as "the cause".

It may very well have come from bats. But bats can infect other animals, in various ways, including ones that are traded in live-animal markets.

This is not about cuisine.

>This is not about cuisine.

How can you even remotely suggest this when the proximity between humans and lifestock animals in horrible conditions is a primary driver of a) transmission of disease, as well as b) increasing resistance to antibiotics due to how much of them we pump into the animals, and then consume ourselves?

It absolutely _is_ about cuisine choices and the sooner we stop eating animals and animal products, the better.

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