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Another thing I'm seeing a lot of is people presuming that if the virus originated in bats and people in China eat a soup made from bats (often garnished with a dead bat), it means that humans get the virus from eating bats.
That's not really how it works. The coronavirus originates in bats but can transmit to intermediate hosts (such as civets in the SARS outbreak and camels in the MERS outbreak). It's not clear whether Wuhan made the jump from bat to person or from some other intermediate host, but the humans get the virus when a human beings become susceptible to a mutation of the virus and it can then jump from the other species to humans.
But that process happens from a live animal (or very recently dead) to humans in the handling or close proximity of the animal. So yes, the market for human consumption is the problem - that's why these animals are in the markets, where they are confined, stressed, and often sick. But the transmission occurs there and not from the process of eating the animal.
That's not really how it works. The coronavirus originates in bats but can transmit to intermediate hosts (such as civets in the SARS outbreak and camels in the MERS outbreak). It's not clear whether Wuhan made the jump from bat to person or from some other intermediate host, but the humans get the virus when a human beings become susceptible to a mutation of the virus and it can then jump from the other species to humans.
But that process happens from a live animal (or very recently dead) to humans in the handling or close proximity of the animal. So yes, the market for human consumption is the problem - that's why these animals are in the markets, where they are confined, stressed, and often sick. But the transmission occurs there and not from the process of eating the animal.
