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by mensetmanusman 1980 days ago
Roll a hyper-dimensional die representing all possible human-bat interaction locations over time.

How many of those are a mile away from locations where scientists actively collect bat viruses?

1 comments

For those not familiar with the geography (like me), the caves where most of these viruses were collected are not near Wuhan, but about 1000 miles away, near [0]Kunming.

>[1]In 2004, deep in the wilderness of China's Yunnan province, a group of scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology discovered a cave full of wild bats carrying hundreds of SARS-related viruses.

>Their work, published in a draft paper in 2005, unearthed the link between SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and bats for the first time.

>Now the virologist who led that study, Shi Zhengli, has revealed one of the strains found in that cave — the exact location of which is a closely guarded secret — is almost identical to the 2019-nCoV coronavirus which has so far killed at least 1,115 people and infected more than 45,000 worldwide, news.com.au rreports

[0]https://nationalpost.com/news/world/cave-full-of-bats-in-chi...

[1] https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/coronavirus-mysterious-bat-...