Originally Answered: Why did SARS and the Corona Virus originate in China specifically and not in other highly populated nations like India for instance?
Why did SARS and the Corona Virus originate in China specifically and not in other highly populated nations like India for instance?
I have read all the answers so far and I am surprised that not only none have given a remotely correct answer but instead some have even digress from the question and started blaming US and other countries for the past virus incidences. Some people have really taken it on their ego or as a chance to vent out on US or other countries such that they have not even answered the real question. So here it is.
India has had it’s own share of infectious diseases such a small-pox, malaria, cholera, etc. in the past. These viruses or infections were caused by small insects like mosquitoes, usage of infected syringes in the non-facilitated hospitals, drinking non-boiled water and other factors like that. These incidences were also in the way past when the infrastructure was poor and drinking boiled water was never heard of and these infections were nowhere near to becoming a world threat.
However, never ever you will see a contagious and as deadly virus as SARS or Corona originating from India even though India is as densely populated as China and any form of contagious infection spread will be very hard to control, even today. There are two primary reasons and extremely simple to understand.
  1. There is an extremely high number of people who do not eat meat in any form in India, which is around 28% of the entire population. They never go near meat nor deal with it in any form. You can not get deadly diseases or infections from plant based food. If you really try hard and deliberately eat a rotten tomato or any other vegetable which has fungus all over it, the worst you will have is that you will vomit for a day, upset stomach, may be fever, but none of that will be contagious. You will be all up and running with in two weeks max if took basic care and medical treatment. I know eating plants is considered old fashioned but if you do you simply cannot get a deadly disease from them, unless you really find and eat a poisonous plant such as Castor Oil plant or Pink Oleander.
  2. However, only 28% is vegetarian, rest are all meat eaters in one way or other - Chicken Tandoori, Butter Chicken, Rogan Josh, Keema Mutter, and so on. Then? Still any chances of such deadly virus(s) being imported from animals to humans are far from remote. Why? Because in India the meat is always COOKED. And by cooked I do not mean putting on fire or oven for two seconds or just smoke them and eating as it is. You really deep fry the meat if you want it fried or you roast it for so long that even the bone inside is roasted and crisped.
    This food-fashion of medium, medium rare, rare rare, blood-rare, is not followed by Indians. You can get such kind of meat in India only when you specifically request at a western oriented restaurant, otherwise not. In normal restaurants they will not even ask you, “How do you want your meat to be done?”. This is not even a question. In your language all meat in India is ‘extremely well done’. In this process meat is thoroughly heated and 99% of the viruses simply can’t survive, hence safe to eat.
    So any chances of an unknown or new kind of disease spreading in or from India coming from animals, go down considerably.
    Edit —
    I have just realized another small but a potential reason - “Cook your own meat” style of serving food. What happens here is the restaurant table has some kind of oven or boiler on the serving table and restaurant serves totally raw meat at the table which the customer is supposed to roast or boil himself and eat. So customer picks the raw meat, and this is totally raw meat we are talking about and not like smoked or half-cooked, puts in the central boiler, waits for few moment and then eat it.
    This, in my opinion, causes two issues - First you are coming in the direct contact of the raw meat at the table, Second - Due to hunger you might not wait to let the meat boil fully and eat as I have personally seen some people just dip it for 10 seconds and take it out which is not enough for all the pathogens to die.
    2nd Edit —
    Lot of readers have pointed out that it is the consumption of exotic animals such as Bats, what is the main reason behind such outbreak. What I would like to say is even if we assume that it has been ascertained that Bats are the cause (though I believe that it is still an assumption so far), had the BAT been cooked properly the virus could have not survived. Cooking properly is very essential no matter what you are eating. (I was thinking to paste a BAT SOUP photo here to show how uncooked such dishes are, but it is extremely gross, so will just give the link, click at your own risk)
3rd Edit —
There is another reason being given in the comment section and I will address it here. It is being said that the real reason Corona virus did not originate or spread in India as India is pretty hot, and so it kills or hampers its growth. People are posting all sorts of news links which state the same facts, and even Trump mentioned it somewhere. Let me clarify, this is simply not true. Corona virus or SARS can survive up to 56 degree C, after which they die at the rate of 10,000 units per 15 minutes. Nowhere in India or anywhere (I believe) the weather reaches that high of temperature. A similar strain, Nipah virus did originate in India in 2018 and led to 18 people dead, but it did not spread further, not because of the heat waves, but good food and meat practices.
2018 Nipah virus outbreak in Kerala - Wikipedia
Below link is from WHO, read it through to know what myths are lurking around.
Myth busters
I request you all to stop following news links to know the technical information about this disease. Irresponsible media is simply feeding to people’s (wrong) perception.