posted by justincredible
Is this that surprising of a development?
Yes? No? Maybe?
Obviously it had a reservoir originating in the bat population. But I've not really heard of viruses mutating in humans, and then jumping BACK to a different animal species (and then, presumably, re-emerging in humans again down the road).
I'm sure it happens and I'm just ignorant. But a virus that likely emerged in bats in China 24 months ago, give or take, is now spreading like wildfire in Iowa deer populations?!?
It was big news, to me, because previously we only heard of isolated incidents in zoos that seemed to originate from handlers. Seeing it run thru a zoo population still gives you pause, but jumping to a wild deer population kind of blows my mind. Honestly, how does that happen?!? My only real guess is a person infected their dog, who then left a pile of shit in the yard, that some deer came along to smell. That's a rube-goldberg vector!
And I don't know. Someone would have to explain to me how this could start running thru the deer population and somehow never jump back to people. Seems like a big "game over" moment in terms of any last hopes of eradication.