The suggestion that stray dogs contracted the disease and became a vector for it by eating infected bat meat comes from Professor Xuhua Xia from the University of Ottawa. The updated name for this novel coronavirus is Sars-CoV-2.
Sars-CoV-2 infected the intestines of the dogs, we are told. It is poor timing as China’s government has declared that dogs should no longer be classified as livestock but as pets as they are in the West.
We are also told that this virus is ‘pervasively expressed in the human digestive system’. That seems to mean in layperson’s language that the Sars-CoV-2 virus likes to reside in the human gut. This is supported by the fact that people suffering from Sars-CoV-2 can have digestive discomfort.
The findings appear to be disputed by Professor James Wood, head of the department of Veterinary Medicine and researcher in infection dynamics at the University of Cambridge. He said that he is unconvinced by the findings and remarked: ‘I do not believe that any dog owners should be concerned as a result of this work’.
The research was published online in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution. At the time of publishing this almost 2 million people have been infected with the virus. I have a premonition that this pandemic will rubble on for years. It is not going to be squashed out of existence by various methods including a vaccine. It may mutate and behave like classic flu but be 10 times more deadly. This will severely slow the process of countries getting on their feet economically. It is predicted that UK GDP will fall by 35%, a massive shock. I’ll predict that the crushing economic damage caused by lockdown will cause more deaths than Sars-CoV-2 in the long term. A disaster.
I am all doom and gloom I am afraid because humankind also has to readdress climate change which has been put on the backburner. The economic damage caused by Covid-19 will make less money available to tackle climate change and to protect the planet. Businesses which pollute the planet will not be minded to spend money on becoming more environmentally friendly. The pandemic will harm nature in the short term. In the long term humankind will have to change but it will be very painful. This is the beginning of that change. I did not think that it would happen in my lifetime.
