One of the new quarters for 2020 honors the National Park of American Samoa but is raising eyebrows because of what’s on it.

A fruit bat mom and her pup are depicted on the quarter in a very strange coincidence because bats are connected to the coronavirus pandemic of 2020.

The U.S. Mint says the park being honored on the quarter is the only one in the U.S. that is home to the Samoan fruit bat.

“The design depicts a Samoan fruit bat mother hanging in a tree with her pup. The image evokes the remarkable care and energy that this species puts into their offspring. The design is intended to promote awareness to the species’ threatened status due to habitat loss and commercial hunting.”

Whose bright idea was this? Great question.

In January, the Chinese officials tried to claim that the fruit bat at wet markets was the cause of the coronavirus:

According to The Sun – The coronavirus that’s killed at least 17 people in China could have spread to humans who’ve eaten bat soup.

USA Today – Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe infections such as pneumonia; Middle East respiratory syndrome, known as MERS; and severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. Common signs of infection include fever, cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties. In more severe cases, infection can cause kidney failure or death.

The virus can spread from animals to people. It can be spread by coughing, sneezing and through close contact with an infected person or an object carrying the virus.

Coronaviruses, Ebola and SARS are zoonotic, meaning they are transmitted between animals and people. Ebola was carried by fruit bats, which spread it to other animals. SARS was transmitted from civet cats to humans and MERS from camels to humans.

The outbreak of coronavirus began in the city of Wuhan – which has since been put in lockdown after more than 600 people were infected globally.

Scientists in China yesterday claimed that the deadly strain shares a common ancestor with a virus found only in fruit bats.

According to Line Today – The coronavirus discovered in Wuhan may share the same bat-related ancestor as Sars, according to the latest study by Chinese scientists, which said the strain was weaker than the devastating 2002-03 Sars outbreak but was still “highly infectious”.

The new virus shares a common ancestor with severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), in HKU9-1, a virus found in fruit bats, they found.

The connection with wild animals was confirmed on Wednesday by Gao Fu, director general of China’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.

According to Gao, the coronavirus, which has sickened over 400 people across the country and led to nine deaths, originated from the wild animals sold at a seafood market in Wuhan. Gao warned that a major challenge was that the new strain was adapting and mutating.

Since then footage and images have been circulated purporting to show people eating the Chinese delicacy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXMEu_Jw2Yk

According to The Gateway Pundit –

CNN is reporting that snakes may also be to blame for the outbreak.

Snakes — the Chinese krait and the Chinese cobra — may be the original source of the newly discovered coronavirus that has triggered an outbreak of a deadly infectious respiratory illness in China this winter.

The many-banded krait (Bungarus multicinctus), also known as the Taiwanese krait or the Chinese krait, is a highly venomous species of elapid snake found in much of central and southern China and Southeast Asia.

The illness was first reported in late December 2019 in Wuhan, a major city in central China, and has been rapidly spreading. Since then, sick travelers from Wuhan have infected people in China and other countries, including the United States.

USA Today reports – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday confirmed the first U.S. case of a new coronavirus. The CDC and Washington state officials said the man, a Snohomish County resident in his 30s, was in good condition at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett. The symptoms presented Sunday, and the diagnosis was confirmed Monday.

Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, called the news “concerning,” particularly in light of reports that the virus has begun to spread from person to person.

“The confirmation of human-to-human spread in Asia certainly increases our concern,” Messonnier said.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said Tuesday that he expected more cases in the U.S.

“Based on what we know now, risk to the general public is low,” Inslee said in a statement. “We take this very seriously and, while this is the first case in the U.S., there will likely be others.”

The CDC, which began enhanced health screenings last week at airports in San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, said Atlanta and Chicago would be added to the list. All traveling from Wuhan, China – where the outbreak began – to the U.S. are rerouted to these airports.