I expected a different pandemic source

[Sunriser13]

Mother Nature just chose a different route. It may sound Doomsday-ish, but I've been expecting for years to see our Earth beginning to shake the human parasite from her Paradise.

Melting glaciers, and especially permafrost, could easily be harboring all kinds of bacteria, viruses, and parasites from hundreds to thousands of years ago. Some of those are known; the vast majority are as yet unknown. I truly thought this would be the source.

I must add that I am no expert, just a reasonably intelligent forgotten person of society who tries to keep up with what's going on.

Please, everybody, stay safe. This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

Take care; I care.

[ansible]

1. Black Death came from China too

China's the perfect reservoir of exotic, deadly diseases to infect the rest of the world with their love of exotic animal meat, overcrowded cities and poor health care system.

[dpibel]

8. Really?

Wikipedia (just as a quick check) seems not to share your certitude about the origin of the Black Death. Places it in Kyrgyzstan.

And what's your explanation for the 1918-20 flu, which seems to have originated in Kansas. Would that be Kansans' love of exotic animal meat? Their overcrowded cities? Their poor health system?

Or would you just be walking right up to the edge of a xenophobic cliff with your post?

[Bev54]

2. Yes we have been warned for a long time

that the super bug was coming and now it is here.

[wcmagumba]

3. Gaia is not happy...

I too hope everyone stays well and safe at home or where ever you are...

[2naSalit]

4. Where it came from doesn't matter anymore. ...nt

[BigmanPigman]

5. I saw a video earlier this week about a doctor

who was trying to understand the Spanish Flu but he needed specimens from actual victims. This was in the 1950s. He went to a small, remote village in Alaska that was hit hard and lost most of its population and buried their dead. Their bodies were preserved in the ground and he was able to get permission to dig them up and he found perfectly preserved/frozen infected lungs and took samples with him.

If he could do that, think of the zillions of frozen germs from who knows how long ago that are frozen but still exist out there in this big, warming world.

[ansible]

6. Could be possible sure, but unlikely to be as bad as current animal/human transmission

Fact is people live close by animals in poorer countries every day and that's not going to change anytime soon. The risk of a new animal disease jumping species is exponentially higher.

[BigmanPigman]

7. True, true.

[Sunriser13]

9. You may well be right

Of course our wanton destruction of places such as the Oceans, the Amazon jungles, etc. can't help either.

I've believed since I was a kid that there is a cure to every disease that exists - and Mother Earth could provide it. I guarantee you we have pushed to extinction much of her bounty without even knowing it. But we have destroyed so very many plant and animal species with pure, unadulterated greed.

[canetoad]

10. I've been watching the permafrost thing too

But ya know, there's no guarantee that this coronavirus didn't come from the result of melting permafrost and an animal being infected.

[Sunriser13]

11. Good point

This particular virus we're dealing with now is a mutation of SARS, so not necessarily from that source, but do we know where SARS originally came from, really?

[BComplex]

12. That's exactly what I thought would happen, Sunriser13.

You take care, too!

[shanti]

13. Don't forget the Amazon

It's being destroyed as we speak. What kind of viruses are being released?

[Sunriser13]

14. True

What we've done to the Amazon is criminal.

I'm convinced we've obliterated cures and treatments provided by nature. We've obliterated plant and animal species before we even knew they existed.

And we're pushing so many we do know about to extinction through habitat loss, trophy hunting, medical folklore and the like.