Read on Twitter
I was going to do a thread on how to understand the risks of Covid-10 infection. But it all got too complicated, so I’m going to summarise what I have read by tweeting a bit about something else:
Bats.
And why knowing about bats helps you know about Covid.
Bats.
And why knowing about bats helps you know about Covid.
If you are only going to read 2 tweets, this is the take away: to avoid getting infected you and your loved ones should try and avoid behaving like bats which are Covid-19’s natural host.
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Bats don’t infect each other when they are flying around, but when they do when they are resting, which they do close together in places like caves. Covid-19 evolved to be good at spreading in those sort of environments.
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So avoid being close to lots of people who might be infected, for extended periods. Particularly avoid “cave-like” environments, with poor ventilation and bad air flow.
Some features of "being a bat" are easy to avoid – it is not a big loss to not fly around eating insects.
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Some features of "being a bat" are easy to avoid – it is not a big loss to not fly around eating insects.
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Bats have amazing immune systems, so they can get away with bad hygiene.
We have different immune systems, so for us, good hygiene is important – so regularly wash hands with soap for at least 20 seconds..
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We have different immune systems, so for us, good hygiene is important – so regularly wash hands with soap for at least 20 seconds..
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if you can’t then use hand sanitizer, sneeze and cough into tissues or your elbow, and wear a mask.
Bats don’t need to wear masks because they have immune systems that can deal with Covid, we don’t: so wearing a mask in public is a good idea.
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Bats don’t need to wear masks because they have immune systems that can deal with Covid, we don’t: so wearing a mask in public is a good idea.
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There is great advice on the NHS website https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/social-distancing/what-you-need-to-do/#prevention
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So what's the deal with bats?
To start - they are the natural host. When Covid-19 was isolated & sequenced, scientists found it was v close to a coronavirus found in Rhinolophus affinis bats from Yunnan province in China (called BatCoV RaTG13)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2012-7?rel=outbound
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To start - they are the natural host. When Covid-19 was isolated & sequenced, scientists found it was v close to a coronavirus found in Rhinolophus affinis bats from Yunnan province in China (called BatCoV RaTG13)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2012-7?rel=outbound
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This isn’t a surprise, because bats are hosts to all sorts of viruses. Scientists are interested in this because a) bats don’t seem to get sick very often, and b) bat viruses sometimes transmit to other animals (like humans) and we get really sick.
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https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2014.2124?etoc=&
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https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2014.2124?etoc=&
You shouldn’t be worried because if you are reading this, you are pretty unlikely to be living anywhere near a dangerous bat. Even if you were, they are very timid creatures and you would be very unlikely to ever be close enough to touch them.
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Bats are wonderful, v delicate creatures that play important roles eating insects. Each one can eat 3000 insects a night. Without bats, there would be a lot more insects and since insects eat food, either less food for us, or more pesticides, which we really don’t want.
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Back to bats and diseases. Some bats (not any living near you) can be hosts to Ebola
( https://www.nature.com/articles/438575a? )
( https://www.nature.com/articles/438575a? )
Others (again not near you) can hosts bugs like Marburg, Nipha (which led to millions of pigs being killed in Malaysia in 1999), Hendra virus (which has killed horses and a few people in Australia), rabies (not in UK bats), and others Melaka, Kampar, European Bat Lyssaviruses.
The weird thing is that while bats can be hosts they don’t seem to get sick.
Despite there being lots of species of bats, they aren’t well studied. They are difficult to study in the wild and far from easy to study in the lab.
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Despite there being lots of species of bats, they aren’t well studied. They are difficult to study in the wild and far from easy to study in the lab.
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With new sequencing technology scientists are now starting to understand a little bit more about these amazing creatures and their equally amazing immune systems https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867418304021
it seems their immune systems tolerate infection rather than being particularly potent at stamping infection out.
And it seems that these remarkable immune systems evolved at the same time bats learnt how to fly
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https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/339/6118/456.full.pdf?casa_token=HIc6CEzsZQ8AAAAA:QCg-Uoqfn3BHNJtTo4k5OoI-cB4gYFaKGvlKIQw4qsRyJ4C7sjWAsO54dlmPP2MgLg4AhVrPTzfy-rY
And it seems that these remarkable immune systems evolved at the same time bats learnt how to fly
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https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/339/6118/456.full.pdf?casa_token=HIc6CEzsZQ8AAAAA:QCg-Uoqfn3BHNJtTo4k5OoI-cB4gYFaKGvlKIQw4qsRyJ4C7sjWAsO54dlmPP2MgLg4AhVrPTzfy-rY
There is a really interesting hypothesis that this connection might be because flying causes bats’ temperature and metabolism to rise, it creates very similar conditions to the temperature rises and metabolism speed ups you get when you get sick.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4012789/#!po=70.8333
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4012789/#!po=70.8333
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One main symptoms of Covid-19 is high temperature. This response helps the immune system. Bats temperature also rises when they fly – you can replicate this effect by flapping your arms rapidly while running around after flying insects in the garden if you like.
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Flying every day gives bats immune systems a boost, which has a big impact on how viruses co-evolve with them.
When they go from bats to other species with different immune systems, these viruses can run amok.
Ebola won't make a bat sick, but will really make you ill
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When they go from bats to other species with different immune systems, these viruses can run amok.
Ebola won't make a bat sick, but will really make you ill
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Indirect support can be found in an infection that is v bad for bats – White Nose Syndrome – a new fungal pathogen that's decimating US bats. Bats get it when hibernating, when their temperate goes down & they don’t have the immune boosts from flying. https://vimeo.com/76705033
This is a horrible disease for bats. So please, if you are in the USA don’t help spread it. Try to avoid places where bats might live and don’t walk from one cave to another carrying spores on your feet.
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https://www.whitenosesyndrome.org/
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https://www.whitenosesyndrome.org/
So in summary:
Bats are amazing creatures, that we still know v little about ( despite only to rodents having more species). They are harmless, v timid creatures, who are easily disturbed (if you wake them up when they are hibernating they might not survive)
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Bats are amazing creatures, that we still know v little about ( despite only to rodents having more species). They are harmless, v timid creatures, who are easily disturbed (if you wake them up when they are hibernating they might not survive)
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They play a vital role in keeping insect numbers down, and keeping our farming systems on track. It is probably a good idea not to disturb their habitats and come in contact with them.
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And never eat one. That amazing ability to fly (I haven’t even mentioned how they detect flying insects with sound) means they may have a bug that you really don’t want to catch.
Bat sashimi is definitely off the menu
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Bat sashimi is definitely off the menu
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A good bit of advice to avoid infection with a bat virus - avoid being in environments like the ones where the virus co-evolved with bats – close proximity, extended periods, limited ventilation, bad hygiene. So wash your hands, wear a mask, stay away from crowded indoor places.
Knowing about bats helps us stay alive.
And if you want to know more about how wonderful bats are, have a look at the bat conservation trust website
https://www.bats.org.uk/
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And if you want to know more about how wonderful bats are, have a look at the bat conservation trust website
https://www.bats.org.uk/
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