Bat scan could insure against future pandemics

In a cave in the Chinese province of Yunnan, creamy dollops of limestone are suspended from the ceiling. It’s warm, humid and stinky. Nestled between the rock formations are thousands of horseshoe bats, squabbling and jostling for roosts.

It was a cave like this that possibly was the source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that devastated the world in 2020. While the vaccine response to SARS-CoV-2 was developed in record-breaking time, there is very little to suggest that we would be able to move so quickly against a new virus. And a new virus is just a matter of time.