The "wet markets" of the Peoples' Republic of China have received a fair amount of abuse, via allegations that they are responsible for the rise of the destructive coronavirus... there is a self-congratulatory social media meme, "we don't eat bats over here." So presumably "they" are at fault "over there."
Indeed, a September 2019 article in a peer-reviewed journal concluded, in more august scientific language, proposed "biological behavioral surveillance in high-risk geographic areas in order to reduce the risk of zoonotic disease emergence." That apparently means somebody should keep track of what's going on in the wet markets of emerging countries and crack down on practices that might enhance risks. The same study identified "serological evidence of bat coronavirus spillover in rural communities in Southern China."
Here's a link to the source for those quotes: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590053619300308
That obviously doesn't imply that the pandemic began with humans eating bats. It could be, as speculated in the movie CONTAGION, that the American jet-setter played by Gwyneth Paltrow simply ate pork in Macau before getting on her flight to Chicago -- eating the remains of a pig who had had an encounter with the wrong bat at the wrong time.
But the same people who turn this into a taunt have another theory. They want this to be a conspiracy, which they can use to justify trade sanctions, or more, against the PRC. If it all began in rather the manner portrayed in the final flashback scene of CONTAGION, no one is at fault. One could fault whoever sponsors the wet markets, or has control of the land where they take place,, for not seeing to it that the sties are properly enclosed to keep the bats out, but that seems a lame excuse for trade sanctions. Indeed, it seems an excessive regulatory demand since I'm betting many of the pig farmers of the PRC live subsistence existences and imposing new costs could mean real hardship.
So it is understandable that the blame-China crowd have another theory. This came from a govt laboratory. It was the consequence of an accident in the testing of bio weapons. Or maybe it wasn't an accident, but a war waged by China against the rest of the world at the expense of a lot of its own people because life is so cheap there.
Notice that these theories are mutually exclusive and any evidence in favor of any of the three of them (wet markets, accidental release, act of war) is evidence against the others. But in the haze of disinformation people want to assert all of them. The exotica of the wet markets, the slur against people on the edge of starvation, the alleged sloppiness of scientists and technocrats, the act of war demanding response in kind -- it all fits together somehow in the minds of all too many.
Get it together, people.
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