Heads up, piglets! I just came across this article on YT… Here’s a link:
Now maybe it’s just me… but I can’t help it… I have only one thing to say about this: FFS WHY???!!!
“Australia the first to re-create the corona-virus outside China”
03 Monday Feb 2020
Posted in Uncategorized
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
‘Wedge of lime’??? Crikey, he’ll be wanting jam on it next! 😉
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I thought the reason was obvious. To help create a vaccine.
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Oops! Ignore this post, piglets… just me being a bit ‘previous’… Of course, they needed samples to work on an anti-virus, and so they took samples of the virus from a patient and ‘grew’ it in the lab. It’s just that the title of this news item made it sound like they were actually ‘re-creating’ the virus and I would have thought that a bit unnecessary.
However, there are rumors on the net that this virus was originally made in the lab and stored in the USA, UK and yes, even here in Oz… so my ‘paranoia’ is perhaps understandable.
Not to worry… ‘Per ardua, ad astra!’ or something… 😉
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This is a zoonosis, endemic to snakes. Bats become infected ( I guess they eat snakes), but, because of their weird immune system, fail to eradicate the virus. The Chinese eat the bats, and, after multiple exposures to humans, the virus has mutated to be able to infect humans. At least that’s the theory. I can’t imagine anyone engineering a virus with such a low kill rate, unless they are using it as a vector to transfect humans with a gene segment. The natural theory seems more plausible!!
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You’re probably right, M… but so many of these ‘epidemics’ actually do start out in labs. If what was wanted was social disruption, rather than mass fatalities, I’d say they succeeded very well… but as you say, I really think it’s origin is natural. (But I wouldn’t mind betting it WILL be weaponized! Sooner or later! The two-week symptom-free period seems to me to be far too useful to any would-be biological war-monger not to take advantage of it… suppose they splice it with something far more deadly?)
I’ve heard that the USA and the UK actually have stores of this virus, and that the USA already has an effective anti-virus. Don’t know whether or not it’s true. It may be wishful thinking…
Tbh, I regretted posting this article as soon as I’d posted it and tried to erase it, but couldn’t. I posted it as a ‘knee-jerk’ reaction to the title and should have known better. If some moderator or site administrator can delete it, I’d be grateful.
As soon as I’d posted it I realized that, of course we’d need to culture it in a lab in order to attempt to produce an anti-virus… but taking a sample from an affected patient and ‘re-creating’ the virus in the lab seemed to me to be two entirely different things, and though the first is what was actually done, the second was what was being put forward as what was done. I still have a problem with the poor phraseology of the title.
I’m also a bit suspicious about the amount of fuss that’s being made about a virus with such a relatively low fatality-rate. I can’t help but think that it is being used as some kind of Trojan horse by the Chinese government… and if they’re using it that way, I’m quite sure other governments will follow their example and use (or, rather, ‘abuse’) it similarly. The message we keep getting from our ‘brave and fearless leaders’ in this wonderful 21st century is, “Be afraid! Be VERY afraid!” because we are so much easier to control when we are fearful. So nowadays I tend to be suspicious of anything which sounds remotely like that message… Can you really blame me?
Anyway, I hope they do come up with an anti-virus very soon, and that this virus disappears very soon after that.
Just as an aside, what kind of lunatic would actually eat ‘bat-soup’? Have you heard how it’s made? The recipe goes, “Take one live bat and dunk it in a pot of boiling water…” Doesn’t sound very tasty to me! But the Chinese, it seems, will eat just about anything!
Please keep this recipe advice away from Granny! I’d hate it if she added it to the Pigs’ Arms menu! 😉
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I saw a video of someone purchasing bat soup in a Chinese restaurant. A cage full of live bats is carried through the restaurant so that the diner can choose one (similar to the lobster tank in seafood joints). The lucky bat is deep fried alive then artfully place in a bowl of broth.
Surely nothing can wrong?
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Deep-fried, is it? I thought it was boiled… but ‘deep-fried’ makes all the difference, eh? ‘Artfully placed’? To look like it had just been dunked in a bowl of soup… I think I’ll give it a miss!
“Waiter! There’s a BAT in my soup!”
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Did it come with a wedge of lime? Asking for a friend.
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Deep fried brings out the flavours.
‘Wedge of lime’, nah, just warm dish water.
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