New pandemic-potential flu found in China 😳

[BabyLlamaZen]

BBC News - Flu virus with 'pandemic potential' found in China
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53218704

Anyone else feel like the human species'days are numbered. We've fucked over mother nature and now she's had enough!

@IcedPurple saying that Chinese have annclination for wildlife is like brits have an inclination towards fox hunting. Most Brits can't afford to own an estate to go hunting;likewise, eating wildlife is very much a rich person pastime, as it is expensive.

That's why the government officials haven't banned it cos many of them are avid consumers. Once read an article written by a mainland Chinese journalist that eating wildlife is a way of showing off. Kinda like buying the middle aged male equivalent of buying a Louis Vuitton handbag. And a lot of them are so enthusiastic about it that they take their whole families with them and a lot of their younger relatives eat the wildlife because they don't want to offend their relatives..the whole system is a result of corrupt political system with a lot of dirty money .

@IcedPurple saying that Chinese have annclination for wildlife is like brits have an inclination towards fox hunting. Most Brits can't afford to own an estate to go hunting;likewise, eating wildlife is very much a rich person pastime, as it is expensive

In some cases, yes, but in other cases precisely the opposite is true. Bats - notorious as a vector for viruses - are often eaten by poor Chinese peasants as a cheep (even free) source of protein.

@IcedPurple

People live in similar ways in central and South America, Africa, the rest of Asia. The sheer size of China's population means there will be more

The Chinese fondness for 'exotic' wild animals makes it different from many of the above. And while population size is obviously a factor, your claim that "The country with the largest population will develop the most diseases. Statistics, innit?" is incorrect, because so many factors are at play. The US has the 3rd largest population in the world, but one third of infectious diseases do not originate there. Not close.

African bush meat? Lots of cultures eat wild food. I've had boar, pheasant, deer, emu, eland, kangaroo, snake...

It just makes people feel safer to pretend China is the issue. Rather than human activity and overpopulation in general.

African bush meat?

The same bushmeat implicated in the spread of Ebola and HIV? You're kind of making my point for me!

It just makes people feel safer to pretend China is the issue. Rather than human activity and overpopulation in general

I never said 'China is the issue'. Just that there are a number of factors involved in the origin and spread of infectious diseases, not just population size. As I said above, if population size were the only factor, why don't lots of infectious diseases originate in the US?

The US is currently doing the best job of fucking the whole thing up.

It's painfully obvious there are other factors. But population size is a massive one.

@MrsTerryPratchett

I think China are taking the piss and its not because I dont get the whole factor of how big the population is, or anything as such but the fact they caused SARS, Covid and now possibly this? It doesnt stay in China either, it comes here and causes a shit house! When do we say enough is enough with it? And by that I mean ceasing much to do with them, till such times they stop their pandemics! People have a go at anti vaxxers for this reason! I know why because we will then be accused of racism. Yes we had mad cow disease but did we make the whole world ill with it? And then again and again with something else? Sometimes I think there really is a darker side and its about world domination! Also I get mad at ourselves, why do we need CHINA to make masks for our PPE? Why do we not make our own PPE to deal with the shit caused by them!? Its like getting attacked, then offering that attacker tea and biscuits afterwards!

Sorry for any grammar mistakes... funnily enough I am just off nightshift from a COVID ward.

We do need to stop farming animals intensely - keeping them in cramped conditions to eat cheap meat

Just what the poor need enforced vegetarianism

@ClaudiaWankleman are you the Chinese government? 😂 the way they treat their people is disgusting.

Why do we not make our own PPE to deal with the shit caused by them!?

Theres a whiff of xenephobia about your post tbh, but the Tory party over decade have decimated our PPE stocks underfunded the health system and decimated the manufacturing capabilities of the uk, your point also spectacularly misses the profit motivation, if business cant make them cheaply enough to make a huge profit then they are not interested because whos going to buy the more expensive PPE just because its British, sorry I'll rephrase that who other than xenophobic idiots who seem to have no critical thinking skills like you PP and believe in English exceptionalism are going to buy the most expensive PPE?

@zippityzip

Aye

@JustAnotherPoster00

Didnt take long for that eh? Truth makes someone xenophobic YAWN

Truth makes someone xenophobic

Nope being xenophobic tends to do that, not truth

Yes we had mad cow disease but did we make the whole world ill with it?

You do understand this is pure luck. The virus either does or does not mutate. If Ebola mutated to have a longer incubation person, or CJD mutated to become pneumonic, we'd all be buggered.

China doesn't 'make the world world ill'. The virus does.

The plague originally came from China too.

Link?

Because central or Eastern Asia isn't 'China'.

No, I’m just pointing out that you’re not spouting sense, just unintelligent conjecture.

I'll just leave this here

Also so you dont believe in paying that bit extra to Buy British and support your own country..or give jobs to fellow countrymen and women when so many have been made unemployed due to the lockdown. You think its xenophobia to support your home country..and would Rather buy cheap, shoddy imitations of PPE that would not pass muster in health and safety checks and which mainly are not any good for the virus anyway because the fabric weave is too wide and let's the smaller virus molecules through anyway, I could go on.....but lets keep calling me xenophobic - have a good evening cos Im certainly not arguing this piffle all night.

@ThisShitDontMatter why don't you throw away your smartphone then and buy a new one with all the parts made in the UK? You can do the same with all your clothes too.

You would truly be supporting Britain.

There is no need to eat meat AT ALL. Plenty of alternatives. All of the recent pandemics have come from animals.

Because central or Eastern Asia isn't 'China'

No, but China is China.

"The plague that caused the Black Death originated in China in the early to mid-1300s and spread along trade routes westward to the Mediterranean and northern Africa. It reached southern England in 1348 and northern Britain and Scandinavia by 1350."

www.britannica.com/event/Black-Death

Everything I've read has said 'in or near China' which is a MASSIVE area and not precise. And China wasn't China back then anyway.

But if it helps you feel like China is to blame for everything, knock yourself out.

Everything I've read has said 'in or near China' which is a MASSIVE area and not precise

I'm not sure what level of precision you want about the exact origins of a 13th century disease. We don't even know for sure where the Spanish flu originated. However, there does appear to be consensus that the plague originated in China. And China is a massive country, so not sure what your point is.

And China wasn't China back then anyway

That's a daft argument. Most modern nation states only date back to the 19th century.

But if it helps you feel like China is to blame for everything, knock yourself out

You knock yourself out with the strawman arguments when you're shown to be wrong. I've never 'blamed' China for anything, it's you tying yourself up in knots here.

Exotic meat eating is a delicacy and it is rich people buying it and eating it in China. This is about poverty.