BATS – Why are they so full of viruses?

Bats are getting a bad rap. Sure they are the source of many infections but this is only when we mess with mother nature and mix animals up together and eat the ones we were not really meant to eat. Bats can eat as many as 6000 mosquitos a night (1200/hour). In addition, they are great pollinators and help to maintain healthy ecosystems.

Bats are not ”flying rats”. They are actually mammals, and they’re the only ones which are able to fly, which is a very stressful and energy intensive activity. To accomplish that, they have evolved a system to dampen their immune system which is a resource heavy, energy zapping physiologic function. As a consequence, various microbes can use them as a host, or “factory”, allowing them to replicate without killing the host. Because of their dampened immune systems, bats are able to live just fine with these microbes in their bodies.

In addition to many varieties of bacteria and parasites, they carry as many as 60 different viruses which can infect humans. They harbor not only many strains of coronaviruses, including Covid-19, but are also the source of Ebola and Rabies. Just having a bat fly near you can transmit the Rabies virus. Ebola is extremely infectious but also very lethal, wiping out entire villages of a few hundred people and then basically, going dormant itself because of the lack of a live host. With Covid, it is not that lethal (lethal enough), but very infectious, which is the worst combination. It affects a lot of people, most of whom don’t die, so it can spread more and because of that, more people die overall.

The viruses spread so fast in a population of bats because of how they live and in particular, sleep. Hundreds if not thousands, sleep in caves and bathhouses, in very tight, confined spaces. These viruses do not seem to impact on their health at all, just like the staph aureus on our skin or the e.coli in our intestines do not affect humans. In addition, their dampened immune systems allow them to cohabitate with them.

When we keep bats, clustered in cages, on top of other animals as we see in the wet markets in the East, the viruses have a chance to spread to other animals. Overcrowded cages of all kinds of animals, stacked ontop of one another. Animals who were not meant to co-mingle. Pooping and drooling all over each other. It’s a veritable “shit-show”. A brewing cauldron of microbes. Eventually, these microbes spread to humans who handle or eat these poor animals and the floodgates open. These animals are also used for “medicinal” purposes. I’m all for ancient modes of medical care but stop short of consuming bats wings or pangolin scales.

Virtually every infectious epidemic has originated from animals. As mentioned in previous posts, Covid-2, aka SARS-Covid-2, as well as SARS-1 originated in bats, spread to Civet Cats in the case of SARS-1 and Pangolins, in the case of our present pandemic. Just an fyi, in the case of Civet Cats, transmission was not only from eating them but from drinking coffee made from beans fed to the cats and then ”harvested” from their poop. Some brainiac thought they would taste better! MERS came from camels, infected from bats. EBOLA from monkeys as did HIV. Swine flu, well, from pigs…. Which should also highlight the fact that it’s not just the wet markets, but our own system of mass animal agriculture, that are to blame for these zoonotic diseases.

I have an upcoming post about the “meat shortage” in which I’ll rant more about how we care more about making money, and making sure we have our hotdogs rather than protecting the already endangered meat-plant workers. It’s literally one of the most dangerous jobs in America with one of the highest suicide rates. Not only is there no shortage of meat, even if there were, we’d all be better off!

I have to get to work but just one more comment. After opening things up a bit, California is already pulling back, closing all the beaches essentially because people just can’t help themselves. Rather than slowly starting up, everyone rushes out the door like crazy people, breaking the rules of basic social distancing and as a result, everyone suffers. And just in case you were wondering, Sweden, which has essentially no real social distancing (I don’t consider being an arm’s-length away distancing) has 10x the death rate of their immediate neighbors Norway and Finland, where more strict isolation practices are followed. The vast majority of deaths are in nursing homes where the most vulnerable live. Way to go!

PLEASE stay safe and be well.

AC 😎✌️🌱❤🐖🏃🏻🧘🏻‍♂️🌎 😷