Why do people think that people actually need to eat bats to get this?
There was a study conducted in 2008 (german), with the aim of identifying wildlife animal viruses that have a pandemic potential just like SARS. They found some form of corona viruses in bats over here in Europe too. So when no one ever looks, it is easy to assume everything is fine or somehow a regional thing. It is not.
These viruses might be able to bridge the gap to domesticated animals any time too here, but maybe never had an effect because of cooking properly and good kitchen hygiene (separating raw meat from ready dishes, washing hands). Bad news for Ozzy Osborne type personalities that like their bats raw, but everyone else would be safe. I do rather assume that a lack of kitchen hygiene is more likely to cause such outbreaks than eating (raw) exotic animals. Maybe animal farmers were unkowingly selling infected animals, reluctant to close their facilities early, too, so a larger group of people got infected concurrently which gave this a higher chance to break out.
Outbreaks are not new in western societies as well. Basically the same reasons for how it spreads are here too, the cash cow companies do not want to risk their business even in the light of facts that indicate it would be best to close. Not really anyone's fault, none of them are epidemiologists and usually verdicts require evidence. And no one has the psychic powers to predict 2 weeks into the future. Meningitis cases (60 deaths per year) for example provoke temporary closing of schools or at least make it to the public every few years, it just never becomes a pandemic.
In other words, the market will swiftly price that $1K per person into every transaction.[...]
UBI is literally one of the least intelligent concepts to be proposed in a very long time. But it sure sounds good to anyone who loves (what appears to be) a free handout and doesn't think beyond that.
To make UBI work you would need to fix rents/prices/salaries (which is short of taking away property in some form; harsh limit to an open market), and more or less punish people by taking UBI away.
It would take away the distinction between government, employment and living your life in a way only totalitarian governments used to.
So... such developments end up in pure socialism, where practically every opinion expressed sooner or later becomes a political statement that would be judged for it's consequences regarding the government (that pays the UBI), otoh no one really owns property (one way or the other) and therefore you have a totalitarian socialism, controlling not only citizenship, but also work, how you spend your income and which spare time activities you do. Such systems existed in several countries and were dumped because of exactly these reasons, i can't believe how many people do not see this kind of trajectory.
If unregulated, no one has a benefit, because there will be price gouging and the money ends up in the wrong hands.