Correction: Actually consuming bats has not been linked to the spread of coronavirus. According to scientists, the virus likely originated in a wildlife food market in Wuhan where these bats (and other wildlife like snakes) are sold/traded. The bats contaminated other animals at the market, who then spread it to humans. It is for this reason that the Chinese government has temporarily banned the trade and consumption of wild animals until they are able to get coronavirus under control.
Bat soup is considered quite a delicacy in some parts of China. Experts now believe it to be possible that the process of getting that meal to consumers might be responsible for the coronavirus crisis.
The number of patients infected with the coronavirus has gone up to 830. The death toll has also risen from 17 just a day or two ago to 26. Although the World Health Organization said Thursday that it’s too early to declare an international public health emergency, they do say that it has become a crisis in China itself.
As a result, experts are desperately trying to find out how this new coronavirus came into being. One theory? Bats could host the virus… after which it may have spread to human beings in Wuhan (China) because they actually eat bat soup there.
No, that’s not a joke. They eat soup with a dead bat in it.
Sopa de morcego pode ter disseminado coronavírus na China https://t.co/U1MeghEYK0 pic.twitter.com/8RdGBIYhqg
— Jornal Extra (@jornalextra) January 23, 2020
Footage of people eating the soup was published on social media this week. In one clip, a girl can be seen putting the bat in her mouth while having a nice dinner with friends. Please be advised, this is truly disgusting to watch:
🇨🇳 daily in #Wuhan #WuhanSARS #WuhanOutbreak to eat bats in soup 🤯 pic.twitter.com/d9yXD3K1uo
— M.T. (@TsangMali) January 23, 2020
Another Wuhan resident took a photo of a dead bat in his soup shortly before eating it.
https://twitter.com/DeepStateExpose/status/1220521399921586182
So eating a soup made of one of the most disgusting animals in the world may be bad for you? Isn’t that shocking! And here I was thinking I may just go out, hunt down a sewer rat, and eat it for lunch — preferably raw, of course! You’re telling me it’s probably best to eat a cheese sandwich instead? Ah well.
In this day and age, we’re not supposed to comment on other people’s eating habits, but I’ll make an exception for this “dish.” This is absolutely abhorrent. How can you look at that dish, look that dead bat straight in its ugly little eyes, and think to yourself: “Yummy! I’m gonna EAT”? Do you just switch off a part of your brain? You know, the part that says “oh no, this is both odious and possibly dangerous too”?
Bat soup… They should isolate these people and monitor them carefully just for being able to put this in their mouths — coronavirus or no.
Finally, another working theory is that the new coronavirus may have “jumped the species barrier” from… snakes. Those snakes may have been on sale illegally to humans in China. And guess what they did with those snakes once they purchased them? That’s right. Snake soup, anyone?
Snakes often hunt for bats in wild. Reports indicate that snakes were sold in the local seafood market in Wuhan, raising the possibility that the 2019-nCoV might have jumped from the host species—bats—to snakes and then to humans at the beginning of this coronavirus outbreak. However, how the virus could adapt to both the cold-blooded and warm-blooded hosts remains a mystery.
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