Wet markets is how people in the majority of countries feed themselves.
I think the issue is not the market, its the hygiene practices - and China has significantly upgraded those in the light of Covid, whether that is enough we won't know for some time.
The banning of exotic species and hygiene practices are significant upgrades in China which to date have not been implemented in dozens of other countries.
Edit: In case any readers think I'm a supporter of China and their repressive regime, absolutely not. The discussion was triggered by remarks on the validity of the actions taken by the POTUS
Just on the wet markets, while some are stating it as fact that this is where CV19 started, this is not actually known and according to the scientists who have examined this in detail there are other possibilities as well.
In which animal species did it occur? A bat, a pangolin or another wild species? Where does it come from? From a cave or a forest in the Chinese province of Hubei, or elsewhere?
In December 2019, 27 of the first 41 people hospitalised (66%) passed through a market located in the heart of Wuhan city in Hubei province. But, according to a study conducted at Wuhan Hospital, the very first human case identified did not frequent this market. Instead, a molecular dating estimate based on the SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequences indicates an origin in November. This raises questions about the link between this COVID-19 epidemic and wildlife.
An analysis of public genome sequence data from SARS-CoV-2 and related viruses found no evidence that the virus was made in a laboratory or otherwise engineered.
www.sciencedaily.com
PS: I too am not a fan of how wet markets in China were run.
”Richard Horton, the editor-in-chief of the Lancet medical journal, wrote that Trump’s decision was “a crime against humanity … Every scientist, every health worker, every citizen must resist and rebel against this appalling betrayal of global solidarity.”
Just on the wet markets, while some are stating it as fact that this is where CV19 started, this is not actually known and according to the scientists who have examined this in detail there are other possibilities as well.
...
PS: I too am not a fan of how wet markets in China were run.
Yes agree, the china ”wet” markets are a serious issue of concern, but lots of countries have wet markets. Our cultural prejudice is not really ours to enforce. Markets should be made as safe as possible but this depends on the cultural practices of the country.
I’ve been to markets in many parts of the world where they have live animals, chickens for example, crabs, fish etc.
Technically, isn’t the Sydney fish market a wet market?
It’s hard to tell if there’s a genuine desire to reform the WHO (which probably shouldn’t be done in the middle of a pandemic) or part of an overall strategy to avoid accountability (WHO, the Chinese, the governors, the democrats, the media, are all to blame, I’m perfect ). Ok perhaps it’s not so hard to tell.
We do know that the Covid 19 virus is natural and not genetically engineered.That however doesn't mean that the virus was unknown before December 2019.A deal of evidence that the disease was present in at least mid November 2019.With the incubation period the first infection would have taken place in early November.Nothing is known about these early patients.
Li Wenliang made his publicised statement on December 30th and we know what happened to him.There were a group of 9 doctors who spoke out in December/January.7 have now died.
However less publicised was a WeChat post by Li Wenliang on December 5 when he said he was treating unusual cases of pneumonia and they had been in hospital for 2 weeks.
Then there is this-
"A research paper released this week describes a surprising trend on the Chinese social-media platform WeChat: Usage of keywords related to the new coronavirus spiked more than two weeks before officials confirmed the first cases.
The authors, five infectious-disease researchers in China, analyzed the prevalence of the terms “SARS,” its Chinese equivalent “Feidian,” “coronavirus,” “shortness of breath,” “dyspnea,” and “diarrhea” in posts and searches on WeChat from November 17 to December 31. Their findings suggest “abnormal spikes and increases” in the usage of all the keywords during that time."
Even with this there are things that stand out such as on January 1st doctors knew it was a corona virus but Hubei officials told them to stop testing.
Also 2 other important things happened on 31/12.
Taiwan informed the WHO that they had had the first human to human transmission of the virus.
However also on that day Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, who works for the WHO and since 2013 has studied the MERS-Cov virus heading the team for WHO in Geneva, said that the new virus would have human to human transmission.
So knowing that what would have happened if Wuhan was locked down then.Certainly seems very possible that this pandemic would be much less severe.
Now to what various countries have done.Taiwan from December 31 sent health officials on to every plane from Wuhan testing temperatures and symptoms.
Jan 22 entry permits from Wuhan cancelled.
Jan 23 Wuhan residents banned.
Jan 25 tours to China suspended.
Jan 30 tours to or transiting China suspended.
Jan 31 All Chinese tourists to leave.
Then Russia,Pakistan,Japan and Italy restricted flights from China.On Jan 31 Singapore the USA.Feb 1 Australia.
Now Taiwan learnt from SARS and were ready.Masks and sanitiser had been stockpiled.Made it illegal to raise prices of those or to hoard.
Schools,shops open and from March 9-29 held the World Orchid Conference's Annual show.
Yet a country of 23 million has had 395 cases and 6 deaths as of April 14.
their graph is impressive. .
So lessons for the future.Get Taiwans action plan and implement it as soon as an epidemic is likely.
It’s hard to tell if there’s a genuine desire to reform the WHO (which probably shouldn’t be done in the middle of a pandemic) or part of an overall strategy to avoid accountability (WHO, the Chinese, the governors, the democrats, the media, are all to blame, I’m perfect ). Ok perhaps it’s not so hard to tell.
Yes agree, the china ”wet” markets are a serious issue of concern, but lots of countries have wet markets. Our cultural prejudice is not really ours to enforce. Markets should be made as safe as possible but this depends on the cultural practices of the country.
I’ve been to markets in many parts of the world where they have live animals, chickens for example, crabs, fish etc.
Technically, isn’t the Sydney fish market a wet market?
It is the mix of warm blooded Live animals in a food market that causes the health issues where safe destruction practices are not followed as in abattoirs but even there there is risk of disease transfer.
On a personal level I struggle with restaurants that have live fish. I saw a brief preview tonight of a wet market where a beautiful tiger cub was up for sale in a wet market in China. Heartbreaking.
It is bad timing that there is a US election issue now. But that doesn’t change my thoughts about wet markets nor the health risks they pose and sometimes culture needs to be reframed.
Trump is serving a purpose for me in questioning WHO but with a completely different agenda.
It is the mix of warm blooded Live animals in a food market that causes the health issues where safe destruction practices are not followed as in abattoirs but even there there is risk of disease transfer.
On a personal level I struggle with restaurants that have live fish. I saw a brief preview tonight of a wet market where a beautiful tiger cub was up for sale in a wet market in China. Heartbreaking.
It is bad timing that there is a US election issue now. But that doesn’t change my thoughts about wet markets nor the health risks they pose and sometimes culture needs to be reframed.
Trump is serving a purpose for me in questioning WHO but with a completely different agenda.
I agree with your first sentiment, but Trump’s response is just self-serving. Nothing to do with reality, as are the rest of his pronouncements. Stuff the good work of WHO. The means justifies the means to get re-elected. Sad.
Donald Trump's efforts to blame China and the World Health Organisation for the US's tragically inadequate preparation for the virus was inevitable — China and the WHO's legacy on COVID-19 are already deeply intertwined, writes Bill Birtles.
Donald Trump's efforts to blame China and the World Health Organisation for the US's tragically inadequate preparation for the virus was inevitable — China and the WHO's legacy on COVID-19 are already deeply intertwined, writes Bill Birtles.
Partially true.. because China did lie about the virus in January for a while, then the world did not know the true effects of the virus until it was way too late - especially during Chinese New Year, where millions of people would travel for holidays
Partially true.. because China did lie about the virus in January for a while, then the world did not know the true effects of the virus until it was way too late - especially during Chinese New Year, where millions of people would travel for holidays
Australia's inital reaction including banning of China, South Korean and then Iran flights was pretty good.
We even got 100k test kits from US manufacturers before the US woke up to what was happening.
(but in the future we need more domestic capability here)
But Italy and Europe was about a week to late (pressures from Victoria and F1 I suspect)
As was the implementation of mandatory 14-day quarantine.
In short we didn't seem to predict how quickly this would spready globally, and then have lots of incoming infected people.
Australia's inital reaction including banning of China, South Korean and then Iran flights was pretty good.
We even got 100k test kits from US manufacturers before the US woke up to what was happening.
(but in the future we need more domestic capability here)
But Italy and Europe was about a week to late (pressures from Victoria and F1 I suspect)
As was the implementation of mandatory 14-day quarantine.
In short we didn't seem to predict how quickly this would spready globally, and then have lots of incoming infected people.
Though Italy stopped flights from China on 31/1-a total ban.USA on 31/1 banned flights from Wuhan and on 4/2 banned all non citizens who had been to
China.Australia on 1/2 banned non Australian travellers who were from China or who had travelled in China.Taiwan had moved earlier.
So Italy despite being the first European country to ban all flights from China ended up the worst affected.
But again the major reason for the severity of this pandemic is the time taken to notify the WHO and other countries of the problem.It was a re run of their actions in the SARs epidemic.
This resulted in the tightening of regulations for notifying others if a potential for spread of an infectious didease was inspected.Now China abided by those regulations with Swine flu and MERs.But those did not start in China.
As part of the PLoS Medicine series on Global Health Diplomacy, Lai-Han Chan and colleagues provide a case study of China's growing engagement in global health diplomacy following the SARS epidemic.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
The World Health assembly recommended the new regulations.They were taken up by the WHO and ratified by most member States.
In his recent post on the 2018-2019 Ebola Outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mr. Villarreal inter alia mentions the connection between the International Health Regulations (IHR) and international human rights law, arguing that states’ obligations under the IHR are to be read in...
www.ejiltalk.org
The WHO also should have picked up on the warnings given by Taiwan and one of it's own researchers on December 31st that suggested person to person spread.It's response to this pandemic was totally different to SARs.Then the director General of the WHO strongly critiscised China's response.So why the difference now when China's response is not that much different to the case with SARs
So there is a case that China has broken an International law and so a possible case for compensation.
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