Who or what do you think is to blame for the coronavirus? COVID-19

[haveanicedayx]

and do you think any changes will be made in order to prevent / reduce the risk of any other global pandemic in the future.

Nature.
There are many, many influenza viruses in the wild and occcasionally some become zoonotic and can jump species.

There have been many pandemics over the last 100 years or more. Most are not as transmissable as this. The Spanish flu in 1917 is the most comparable, but it was more deadly.

I hope the world redoubles our efforts to stop the trade of illegal wildlife after this, as well as the wet markets in Asia. Yes, disease can hop from one species to another in nature, but the conditions associated with these two activities make it a lot more likely.

I agree that pandemics are part of the natural cycle of things. We won't know until it's all over which governmental strategy was best. I think some of the S.E.Asian countries were better prepared after experiencing the SARS outbreak in 2003 so you would hope that pandemic planning will be taken seriously after this.

Nature. If we don’t do anything about overpopulation, she will.

I do hope all the handshakes and general touchy feeliness goes

And also that public places are properly cleaned by cleaners who are paid a wage to reflect the importance of their work

Probably getting rid of dodgy eating practices will help.

The other aspect, though, is people travelling by plane unchecked. I think there may be more health related entry checks after this.

I blame people who catch, sell and eat live wild animals in unsanitary conditions. Covid is likely to have come from bats (possibly pangolins). Ebola I believe also originated in African "bushmeat".

Evolution baby. In all it's glory.

Nature, basically.

I do think China has a lot to answer for though.

China has a lot of questions to answer but I fear we will never know the truth

On another thread it was suggested that it was manufactured in a biolab in Wuhan and either purposefully or accidentally released.

Nature. It’s a natural disaster same as an earthquake or flood.
Of course, we cab improve our response and preparedness but we cannot prevent viruses from evolving.

I think it’s man made. I know others will think that’s a load of nonsense. I think it was made in a lab and was never meant to get out.

Ha! I came on to say "Nature" and saw that was literally the first word of the first reply.

I sometimes think us modern first world people have forgotten how fucking vicious nature can be. It is not tamed. We do not have dominion. Earthquakes, tsunami, plagues, mosquitos. They can come and get us on a huge scale and there's very little we can do about it.

I agree, China need to be accountable, but I also fear no changes will be made.

Bagels - made in a lab for what purpose?

Re Nature, I do hope the world will go back to less international travel etc as well.

Apart of paranoid tin foil hattery, why is making a virus in a lab more likely than a virus mutating, a perfectly well-documented phenomenon?

Did anyone watch “Contagion” with Kate winslet/Jude law etc the other week? It was so identical to what’s going on now it was terrifying!

And at the end it shows how it all basically started from the demolition of rainforests (bat roosts disrupted, bat flies to barn in local farm, pig eats batshit, pig is slaughtered for human consumption, chef preparing pig then touches Gwyneth Paltrow!!! Etc etc)
Maybe this started in a wet market but it’s pretty much the same cycle.

The manufactured in a lab theory has been disproven:
www.livescience.com/coronavirus-not-human-made-in-lab.html

I think there are issues with China's desire to control the world economy, but they did not purposefully start this. Another virus could move between animals another time in another location e.g. europe.

My understanding is that it is a combination of human mistreatment of animals and overpopulation/international travel according to an article I read.
CV19 is a natural pathogen in bats, they live happily with it. But in Chinese wet markets bats are stressed, causing virus shedding. Passed to humans due to close contact (possibly via another animal), and then huge population in China combined with excessive human travel meant it became quickly widespread globally. In the olden days with less people and travel, it would have remained localised.
So basically it is completely the fault of humans!

www.cnn.com/2020/03/19/health/coronavirus-human-actions-intl/index.html

Here is the article for my post above

china

Someone said China knew about the virus in November...if this is true why did they not close the borders in and outbound to contain it?

So basically it is completely the fault of humans!

Except you could look at it another way. Viruses and all organisms have to reproduce (selfish gene only cares about passing itself on). So evolution has inbuilt methodology. It randomly mutates and the successful mutations thrive and multiply. There are probably billions upon billions of ways that didn't work. This one did. Had it not been wet markets, something would have come along.

People want to see meaning and order and blame. But evolution doesn't work that way. It's just try a million mutations and one will work.

I've long thought that the really scary disease is one that effects grasses, like rice. Think like the potato blight did during the Potato Famine.

“ But evolution doesn't work that way. It's just try a million mutations and one will work.”

That’s my understanding too but I’m not a scientist.