I admit I went far afield trying to educate Adam to forum courtesy, Tera, and understand why it got a bit much for you. However, I have decided to let Adam show his true colors on his own. I believe he is incorrigible. I'm sure he feels the same way about me. I can live with that.
Back to the thread, I saw some articles that suggest that in the open-air markets of Wuhan, one way to decide if a pangolin is fresh is to lick it. Since I don't eat pangolin, I must admit lack of personal knowledge on this one. But if one is infected, it surely hasn't been thoroughly cleaned yet. If that report is true, then it provides a link in the chain between bats and people. I am also saddened to hear that apparently, dogs can get it too. Which makes this a really NASTY strain if it can infect four different species.
Here in south Louisiana, we have open-air food markets, particularly in New Orleans East, which includes a Vietnamese refugee community that started out during the fall of Saigon in the 1970s. They usually carry things that you wouldn't "taste test." For instance, nutria and alligator meat, crawfish (Fr. ecrevisse), turtle, and fresh-caught fish. Plus, of course, stuff from some vegetable gardens or fruit trees. In fact, it's one of the few places in the area where you can get fresh dragon-fruit.
Our local outbreaks haven't been around those markets, though. They are centered on nursing homes, which means that our "hot spots" are iatrogenic - i.e. caused by being around sick people in a hospital-like situation. We have at least three nursing homes in the city limits and another one in a suburban community on the north shore of our Lake Ponchartrain. Lambeth House has had nine deaths so far and has at least 17 other residents who have been confirmed to have the virus.
I am sad that my mother-in-law passed away in 2018, but at least she was spared the craziness that would have gone around in her nursing home at this time. If she were still alive, she would have stressed herself into a heart attack because her problems were physical. Her mind was intact and she would have known what was going on. I think from the person side of this, the toughest part for people with relatives in nursing homes is that as a matter of isolation, or as a matter of actual quarantine and containment, visits to nursing homes are being restricted right now. So folks can't visit their loved ones and those loved ones can't get "face time" with their families. THAT isolation is probably the hardest part for the elderly in such homes.
