People eat bats?

I live on the edge of canyons and hill country. There are caves in the canyons where bats live. There are bats that live underneath bridges over country creeks. These little guys fly around at dusk and dawn and eat insects such as mosquitoes. The above photo is of one of the bats in the area who didn’t get back to his home before a storm came through. He spent his night (which was daytime for us) underneath a porch awning. He returned for several weeks during the height of mosquito season. I had no mosquitoes while he was visiting. It was fantastic. They are neat little creatures. My son thought it was the coolest thing ever.

I did not know until this new corona virus in China broke out that people ate bats. I am pretty sure that I would not be able to eat a bat. I have tried a lot of different food in my lifetime, but bats? Nope, nope, nope!

I know that most of the world is concerned about the spread of the new virus as am I. What I really want to know though is about the bats. Does the virus kill the bats? Do you have to eat the bats to catch the virus from bats? Is the virus in bat dung? Are the bats spreading the virus throughout the bat population in China? I understand the virus has jumped to people and people are spreading the virus amongst each other. There are warning signs of a pandemic and everyone is worried. Cities are being quarantined. It’s awful. I am wondering about the bats because I want to know how you quarantine a bat population if it is continuing to spread or carry the virus. Will this be a recurrent virus during certain times of the year in the bat population similar to the Ebola virus being recurrent in certain areas? I want information on the bats if that is one of the sources of the virus.