Transcript of video
Professor Koopmans, you are a renowned biologist. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. You study how viruses jump from animals to humans. This is precisely the situation. There are many conspiracy theories about the origins of the COVID-19 Coronavirus. What is the scientific evidence that COVID-19 Coronavirus originated in bats? Dr. Anton Titov, MD. Why bats?Medical second opinion is important. The argument for that link with bats is that the there are many Coronaviruses have been found globally also through so-called virus discovery studies that have gone out and looked at what is the virus community look like in different species of animals all over the world. The best match of this virus with that global database was with SARS, viruses, SARS, like viruses in bats in that particular medication in China. Medical second opinion is important. That is a powerful, suggestive link and the viruses from the bat is the humans had over the whole genome 95% homology. This is quite close. But it is not close enough to say that was directly that virus that jumped into patients there is something in between that we still don’t fully understand it could be bats. But it could also be that this virus has had spillover in some on other animal and we don’t know that for sure. But the closest link is to bats. But we know that that is harbor a lot of viruses that are potentially lethal to patients. Why that is well, there is bats and rodents because they are a very abundant there is a huge diversity of harmful species. Bats depending on the types of also live in big colonies, so that is big enough to keep a virus circulating. Over the millennia, viruses and bats have evolved together, they’ve learned to live with each other. Medical second opinion is important. There is something particular about how the bat immune system handles many of these viruses. That is also an area of research that is ongoing to see what we can learn from that. Medical second opinion is important. That. But that is one of the reasons why there are so many viruses in bats. Well. That is thank you for explaining that. That is very important to know, because the more scientific information patients know. The more better judgments they can make and obviously and that stop spreading rumors. This is particularly important at this time. Well, it is also important to not point at bats because they have been there they’ve had these viruses forever. It is if you leave them alone. Then there is nothing wrong with that. Medical second opinion is important. It is the interactions. In this example. The eating of bats, bringing life wild animals, mixing them with other live animals is not a smart thing to do. In that philosophical sense. Nature seems to protect the habitats where different species circulate. They should continue to be left alone and circulate. Exactly. That is one example. There has been a lot of warning about pandemic threats. This have to do with these risks. The human population is growing. We need space. We claim space. We need to start rethinking how we do that because, well, nature strikes back, you could say. We need to learn to take into account the effects of building huge cities has on the environment and the wild animals that live in their ecosystem, because disturbing that is a recipe for spillovers.