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| It has a home |
There is sure to be a mystery enclosed within an enigma when it comes to considering the world of viruses, especially the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
"It came from China" (D.J. Trump); "no it didn't" (W.H.O.); it came from "Brazil" (MedRx); it came from "France" (Science Direct); it came from "food" (Science Direct); "it was suggested that SARS-CoV-2 might have evolved in a canid [dog] gastrointestinal tract prior to transmission to humans" (Molecular Biology); "a bat" (The Lancet); "The origin of the severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus causing the COVID-19 pandemic has not yet been fully determined" (US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health).
One thing which the CDC of D.J. Trump trumpeted was that there was "no evidence" that it could be transmitted by food or things we touch while producing meats that become food (Why You Probably Don’t Need to Worry About Catching COVID-19 from Food).
Oh? ... what about:
"Early in the pandemic, scientists discovered that fecal matter contains
bits of the genetic material from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes
Covid-19, up to a week before a person
tests positive. Sewage couldn’t tell you exactly who is infected, but
it could reveal if there were infections afoot in a region—potentially,
even before people started feeling sick."
(Old sewers are becoming a modern Covid-19 watchdog, emphasis added). It was detected in the sewers of other countries before the China discovery:
"We analysed human sewage located in Florianópolis (Santa Catalina,[sic] Brazil) from late October until the Brazil lockdown on early March. We detected SARS-CoV-2 in two samples collected independently on 27th November 2019 (5.49±0.02 log genome copies/L)."
(MedRx, emphasis added; cf. here). Among other things, this begs the question: "How does it get into our digestive tract and then our feces (if not through food)?" (SARS-CoV-2 monitoring in wastewater/sewage: e.g. here, here, here, here, etc.).
That is why this series has put forth a contrary hypothesis (On The Origin Of The Home Of COVID-19, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19).
Subsequently, other researchers have also advocated for more research into that source:
"In recent months, nearly all countries tried to decrease human-to-human contact as the principal mode of transmission of SARS-CoV-2. However, other modes of transmission also need to be clarified in more depth, especially, the foodborne transmission. We assessed the effect of animal origin foods consumption on the pandemic of COVID-19. For this purpose, we studied the relationship among 20 food supply as independent variables, and the parameter of Total Cases as dependent variable. Here we show a relationship between a group of animal origin foods and total cases."
(Keen relationship between COVID_19 and food supply suggest some animal origin foods as excellent vehicle of SARS-Cov-2, emphasis added). This seems reasonable since the predecessor of SARS-CoV-2 is SARS-CoV-1, which had a food related fingerprint:
"On
16 November 2002, an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome
(SARS) began in China's Guangdong province, bordering Hong Kong. The
first case of infection was traced to Foshan. This first outbreak affected people in the food industry, such as farmers, market vendors, and chefs."
"During the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, rural meatpacking counties [food makers] had infection rates 10 times higher than rates in other rural counties, said the USDA on Thursday. And despite improvements, the COVID-19 rate in the 49 U.S. counties that rely on meat plants [food makers] for jobs remains somewhat higher than in the rest of rural America as the disease surges again."
(COVID-19 cases in meatpacking counties were 10 times those in other rural counties). The closer one looks the more one realizes that "virus" is a mystical word to not only the general public but to general science as well.
This is all the more obvious when the simple fact that there are more viruses than there are stars and planets (The Real Dangers With Microbes & Viruses).
Thus, if they were really out to get us, if we were really their number one enemy, they would have no problem destroying us, even to the last person.
But little rays of light are shining in on researchers:
"It is astonishing that with our more than thirty-five combined years of working in the field of virology, we continue to read on a regular basis about novel emerging viruses infecting species from all three domains of life. The focus of our research is on single-stranded DNA viruses. Even for this apparently small group of viruses, many new members are identified each year that need to be characterized, providing seemingly endless opportunities for new research directions. Indeed, studying these new viruses does not end with characterization of their physical properties or disease-causing phenotypes, because many have the potential to be developed into useful biologics with therapeutic benefits to humans. Our experience as virologists suggests that the use of “good” viruses is common practice. If a survey were to ask non virologists for their opinions about viruses, the word “good” would be unlikely to arise. Instead, words such as “disease,” “infection,” “suffering,” or “life-threatening” would likely dominate, as people primarily think of viruses such as HIV, Ebola virus, Zika virus, influenza virus, or whatever new outbreak is in the news. However, as we are now finding out, not all viruses are detrimental to human health. In fact, some viruses have beneficial properties for their hosts in a symbiotic relationship (1), while other natural and laboratory-modified viruses can be used to target and kill cancer cells, to treat a variety of genetic diseases as gene and cell therapy tools, or to serve as vaccines or vaccine delivery agents. The ability to treat diseases using viruses, often referred to as virotherapy, has become the subject of intensive research in recent years. Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. According to the World Health Organization, about 8.8 million people died from cancer in 2015."
(The good that viruses do, cf. here). One can quickly become suspicious of the powers that be in the sense that "security" is the number one "product" of some of our largest institutions.
Big Pharma, Big Media, and the military specialize in their combined product "security", so, it is no wonder that their take on it is that any virus is a "threat to our security".
They sometimes tell us that a virus mutates on its own and reproduces itself on its own (NBC).
That is false and an outcome of, among other things, the "Teleology" plague (Teleology, Wiki, Weekend Rebel Science Excursion - 24).
The most incredible fable which the public is fed is that a tiny, by comparison, virus busts into a world-or-so-larger microbe then has its way with the vast, by comparison, machinery within the microbe.
These two Dredd Blog series will shed some light on that dark fable (The Uncertain Gene, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11; On the Origin of the Genes of Viruses, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15).
So, if we think that a virus, after breaking into a microbe, just simply has its way with the single-celled microbe composed of, among other things, highly complex molecular machinery (inside the microbe), we need to meditate a bit about it so as to accurately contemplate the real experience of a virus.
Enjoy the short video below while doing that meditation, because it is what a virus really would go through:
The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.