Bats and COVID-19

You cannot catch COVID-19 from a bat!

Mammals (including bats and humans) and birds are known to have coronaviruses. Most do not move to humans.

Pallid BatWhile scientists are still investigating the origins of how the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic became established in the human population, the general consensus is that the virus was not “created in a laboratory” and it was not directly transmitted from bats to humans. The SARS-CoV-2 virus (responsible for COVID-19)  is similar to a virus that has been found in horseshoe bats in China, but the true origin of the virus and how it first infected people is still unknown.

One thing that we do know is that even if the coronavirus that originated the disease originally came from bats, it entered the human population due to human behavior, which could include illicit wildlife trade, habitat destruction, hunting of bushmeat, wet markets, and other invasive human activities.

Some points of information on bats and COVID-19:

  • The species of bats that might have been the source of the virus is found in Asia, not in North America.
  • In North America we don’t engage in the kinds of activities that create stressful and dangerous interactions between wild bats and people, such as “wet markets” and consuming bats for food.
  • There is no evidence that bat viruses can directly infect humans.
  • Bats harbor no more viruses than other animals.
  • Bats are an important part of our ecosystem, helping to control damaging insect populations, pollinating plants, and more.
  • Reports of 96% genomic similarity between viruses are misleading without proper perspective. We are at least that related to chimpanzees but remain vastly different.

Here is an excellent video produced by Kristin Tieche, Selvavision and The Wild Lens Collective, with support from Northern California Public Media. For more information, please visit: www.theinvisiblemammal.com

Here are some links with additional information: