COVID 19… feels like a déjà vu

Photo by Edgar Castrejon @edgarraw Unsplash

Human genome contains 98000 retroviral sequences that keep on cutting themselves out and pasting back into the host genome without causing much trouble. On top of that there are over 100 papillomaviruses and over 100 various viruses causing cold that we keep passing to each other without worrying too much. In fact those viruses hit the sweet spot of spreading and surviving without being in danger of extinction like say Ebola or SARS that were too deadly for their own good, or Small Pox that had to be dealt with.

We can see the same happening through the rest of the animal kingdom. All of the viruses are very well adopted to their hosts, not being very helpful but not causing much harm either. The viruses are generally very hard to transmit between the species. Since different species have different receptors on their cells, if say a sick pig sneezes at you, the chances that the virus is going to stick to you is rather slim. However, if there is a will there is a way. As my virology prof. said it – if you take a shower in that given pig blood, you will be exposed to millions of viral particles and one mutation on one of them might just make it right for you. Sure, let’s not be so drastic. Let us take it a piece at a time, which piece would you like, sirloin or ribs?

To be fair this is not – The greatest of the human folly. There are plenty of viruses like Malaria or Dengue that we would want nothing to do with, but are brought to us by mosquitos and other bloodsuckers. Despite everything though, we are trying our best to get as much of the foreign viruses into us.

My favourite example is though not a virus, demonstrates my point perfectly. Scrapies had been known since 18th century, it causes a degeneration in the neural system of ship, making them scratch their fleece off. Since it didn’t seem like a good idea to eat them, we did the next best thing. It still bothers me, years after finishing the degree. We fed the dead sheep to cows as food supplement…And that is how much more famous mad cow disease was created with following vCJD in humans. Many more examples like swine flue, SARS, HIV and now COVID 19 go through the same painfully simple process, let’s just keep eating all manner of animals, and see what sticks.

I’m sure COVID 19 will be taken care of pretty soon with some sacrifices and new regulations. I personally hope that it would make a few more people question a little bit more about what exactly are they putting in their mouth.