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Only after watching a short but interesting documentary on youtube about wet markets in China [1] I understood why they are so interested in keeping that industry operational. It's as bad as it is, but unfortunately wet markets also seem to play a massive economic role in some parts over there, where many people depend on it.

I'd sure hope, that the western world would put more pressure on China, but instead it seems we'll be facing even bigger pandemic threats in the future..

[1] https://youtu.be/TPpoJGYlW54

⬐ decebalus1

> It's as bad as it is, but unfortunately wet markets also seem to play a massive economic role in some parts over there, where many people depend on it.

Ok, so what? Adapt.

Like the rest of the planet did. As an example, Restaurants also play a massive economic role in the western world and pretty much everything involving gatherings of people. Or my grandparents doing their groceries without risking their lives. So we managed to more or less adapt to the new reality.

Wet market importance pales in comparison to the changes to the rest of the planet, honestly.

⬐ barnacled

“The majority of the people in China do not eat wildlife animals. Those people who consume these wildlife animals are the rich and the powerful –a small minority.”

Thanks for that, I viewed that some time ago and found it very informative. I am not sure I'd agree it plays a big economical role, rather it became an alternative outlet for some producers but mostly it appears to be a luxury item for the rich and thus entirely viable for China to ban.

I'd have a lot more sympathy if poor people ate such animals to survive (as with a lot of 'bush meat' in Africa) however that isn't the case.

China have no excuse for not closing these, at all. Traditional Chinese 'medicine' where they grind down very many animal parts in extremely unclean environments is another big flashpoint.

The risk is at the species-extinction level yet the actions by the world and the coverage by journalists is so low. Astonishes me.

I'd like to add to to your statement.

The entire quote which this article branches on reads:

> “The presence of a large reservoir of SARS-CoV-like viruses in horseshoe bats, together with the culture of eating exotic animals in southern China, is a time bomb.”

I'd say that the second part of that statement carries more importance then the exact type of virus and the specific research on that type.

I'm no virologist, but if the barrage of news from the last few months have taught me anything, it's that the actions of humans are a big factor in increasing the probability of any type of outbreak. Sure, researching specific families and types of viruses gives us valuable insights. But in and of themselves, tying that knowledge into a larger interdisciplinary framework and translating that then into socio-economic policies, safety guidelines, legal frameworks,... is really important.

Going back to the quote above, this Vox piece does a great job explaining that side of the equation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPpoJGYlW54

⬐ oasisbob

In other words, you think someone in China ate a bat and made the world sick?

⬐ maemilius

My understanding of the extant research is that SARS-CoV-2 jumped from bats to pangolins to humans in wet markets in China that sold "farmed" wildlife.

In short, yes. Wet, wildlife markets in China were the source of this outbreak.

⬐ albntomat0

What's the baseline for similar predictions from credible sources? In retrospect, that's spot on, but we can't evaluate past prioritization without knowing how many other equally credible dire predictions were made that haven't panned out.

Here's a study that exactly goes into your question:

https://www.faculty.umb.edu/peter_taylor/epi/oxford05.pdf

The conclusion of that article is that the basic lessons we learn today, were - in part - learned in 1918...

Back then, researchers had already traced the emergence of outbreaks to an encampment in France where men and animals were living in close quarters and unsanitary conditions.

As to the first part of your question, the answer is that more people encroaching on the animal and wildlife territory while not adhering to basic sanitary practices will increase the chance of new strains appearing and making the jump to humans.

Vox did an excellent video on how this works for Corona: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPpoJGYlW54

Such events do not only happen in China in particular but they can happen virtually anywhere in the world.

Another ongoing pandemic is HIV/AIDS. Well, it is generally accepted that the jump to humans occurred in West-Africa in the 1920's. But it took time and globalization - increasing mobility - before HIV finally spread across the world:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_HIV/AIDS

⬐ SCM-Enthusiast

May be a complete digression but it's much easier for me to believe the virus escaped from Wuhan Virology Institute than made the jump from a fish market.

I highly suggest you this video [1] from Vox which explains why virus outbreaks (like SARS, Ebola etc) usually appear in wet markets, like the one in Wuhan.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPpoJGYlW54

⬐ michaelmrose

YouTube is such a bad source in discussions about controversial matters that not only should it incur -5 karma but people ought to appear to repossess your keyboard.

- what one can read in 30 seconds takes 5 minutes to watch because people read much faster than they talk.

-The relevant 5 minutes of video will usually be embedded in a 20 minute video somewhere in the middle.

- The url says nothing about the trustworthiness ofthe source so you have to go out of band to establish credibility. Add to this YouTube is literally where every crank ever uses for sources as if 17 lunatics quoting each other makes them collectively more credible.

Basically a YouTube video is an invitation to waste 20 minutes of your life

Consider spending a few minutes summerizing the the video including what is established and by whom and why they are a credible source.

That way readers can distinguish between you and a million cranks.

⬐ jorge-d

I have a hard time to see the point of your message, given that if you read the description of the said Youtube video they post multiple of the source material they used to make it if you're allergic to videos.

My message was only a recommendation, I don't see why I should try to summarize an already well-crafted explanation.

⬐ michaelmrose

It is actually a good video but its hard to discern this and even this well crafted explanation could have been profitably replaced by 2 pages of text.

Yes, according to the list of available animals in this Vox video (skip to 3:05 for the menu): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPpoJGYlW54

⬐ pinkfoot

Damn.

It's not the same. Live ocean creatures are isolated from each other. They're stored in water-tight containers by necessity. By contrast, live land animals are stored in cages and often stacked on top of each other.

Vox has a video explaining "Why new diseases keep appearing in China" [1]. They include footage of Chinese wet markets around the 2:00 mark. I think they make an excellent case for strictly regulating, or even outright banning wet markets.

Long ago, Europe had the same problem. The cities were full of wet markets, and were basically the perfect conditions for creating new plagues. There's a nice CGP Grey video on this, "Americapox: The Missing Plague" [2].

[1]: https://youtu.be/TPpoJGYlW54 [2]: https://youtu.be/JEYh5WACqEk

This video explains the difference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=98&v=TPpoJGYlW54...

Wet markets should be banned because they contain endangered species and the vendors are committing horrible animal rights abuses, oh and they are responsible for multiple corona viruses too.

Here's a great explainer video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPpoJGYlW54

Absolutely. The worst thing is that whenever these pandemics happen China does ban them but they a few months later they allow them to reopen. Do they think that the same thing won't happen again? Vox put out a pretty good video on wet markets recently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPpoJGYlW54

Why new diseases keep appearing in China

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TPpoJGYlW54

⬐ azinman2

I was expecting that to be some racist video, but it was actually very informative.

Aren't SARS and COVID suspected to be the result of viruses jumping species in wet markets that sell wildlife?

If that is true, I'm not sure you can just say "it happens", as the wet market environments are man-made.

[1] Vox : "Why new diseases keep appearing in China" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPpoJGYlW54

[2] Vox Explained: "The Next Pandemic" -- https://www.netflix.com/watch/81062202?trackId=13752289&tctx...

In preparation of stopping next pandemic, maybe we should have an international agreement like Paris climate change agreement. Like climate change and nuclear weapons this is an existential risk.

Yes, outbreak of zootonic diseases is still possible through widely consumed firm animals (chickens, pigs, or cows). But we can dramatically reduce the risk of next pandemic if we stop eating exotic wild animals like bats, which is not hard to give up. We may have been able to stop outbreak of COVID-19 on the first place if we had learned our lessons from SARS outbreak and stopping eating exotics animals.

EDIT: bat was used as an example. You can replace any exotic animals in place of bats, the point still stands. This video touches on the topic of outbreak of coronavirus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPpoJGYlW54

⬐ jiofih

MERS has camels as hosts, is the deadliest by far and 1) camels are not exotic in the Middle East 2) you don’t need to eat it to be infected.

⬐ smt1

Although MERS is more deadly than SARS-CoV-2, it looks it's less transmissible between people than SARS-CoV-2. I heard an epidemiologist theorize that it might be because people infected with SARS-CoV-2 shed the virus before they show any signs of COVID.

Maybe that's why MERS never spread widely outside of areas where camels don't exist widely.

⬐ jiofih

Yeah, plus dead people tend to not socialize a lot.

⬐ makerofspoons

The Paris Climate Agreement should definitely not be the template. It has zero teeth and is hardly aggressive enough to hit its own targets.

⬐ swasheck

I thought that the bat soup origin was debunked. I'd suspect it's pretty rare that you come across a novel virus that's hardy enough to survive cooking at temperature and then the rigors of the human GI tract.

⬐ missedthecue

It was from a wet market, and was probably contracted during the butchering process, not during consumption.

⬐ terramex

SARS-CoV-2 virus is zoonotic for sure, question is only what kind of animal was immediate host and what was mode of transition. It didn't have to be eating, might as well have been transmission of body fluid like mucus while hunting or cutting meat.

⬐ riyadparvez

> I thought that the bat soup origin was debunked

Bat soup was used as an example. It would help the discussion if we stop taking everything in the most literal way possible.

⬐ swasheck

You didn't use it as an example, I was recalling from the initial theories when "coronavirus" was making the news.

It would also be helpful to the discussion if "we" stopped casting broad nets and making sweeping generalizations without specifics and context.

"Eating exotic animals" has no real meaning. Bats may not be exotic in that region. Additionally, you specifically said "eating" and, so, my comment was specifically directed at the consumption of animals. In that case, cattle (not "exotic" in my region) can carry bovine spongiform encephalopathy which _can_ survive ingestion (most likely CNS tissues). So, when dealing with science-y sort of things, making generalizations in order to support an opinion, you're basically opening yourself up to people (like myself) who desire specificity and factual support.

As was mentioned in an erudite child comment, the most likely form of transmission was in the preparation of the foodstuff, so if you believe that more caution should be exercised, then you'd get no complaints from me.

⬐ mordechai9000

I don't know anything about the likelihood of the bat origin theory, but it wouldn't have to pass through the gut. It could pass from mucous, saliva, or other secretion, or internal fluids/tissues. If it got on a surface at any point during processing, either the people handling the animal or someone else could transfer it to their own noise/eyes/mouth just by accident.

⬐ swasheck

that's a great point. thanks for the corrective.

⬐ gentleman11

1. Pandemics are never an existential risk like those other examples. Even something insanely deadly like Black Plague or MERS is less deadly than a nuclear war or massive climate change

2. Unfortunately, the Paris accord has not yet prevented global warming. In the absence of El Niño, we still had the hottest January in 141 years this year

⬐ jfim

> if we stop eating exotic wild animals like bats, which is not hard to give up

That seems a very first world-centric point of view.

Isn't the eating of such animals partially driven by cultural culinary preferences, and partially driven by the availability of such foods (eg. unable to afford beef or chicken, but can afford the next best thing).

⬐ chungus_khan

It's also not actually sound to begin with. MERS was transmitted to humans from camels, which are not exotic at all in the middle east. Livestock frequently interacts with wild animals, and this isn't really preventable, especially against bats. Worse yet, livestock is generally kept in large groups in close proximity to each other, and once slaughtered is distributed quickly and widely. While it doesn't get the same media coverage, it is not that uncommon for diseased meat to make it into the food supply. While meat inspection practices go a long way to help, they for obvious reasons have a hard time dealing with new diseases.

⬐ riyadparvez

I specifically mentioned that

> Yes, outbreak of zootonic diseases is still possible through widely consumed firm animals (chickens, pigs, or cows). But we can dramatically reduce the risk of next pandemic if we stop eating exotic wild animals like bats, which is not hard to give up.

Washing your hands is not going to stop every single disease on the earth, but it'll reduce the risk. What exactly is the unsound part here?

⬐ chungus_khan

The idea that a policy attempting to stop the consumption of wild animals would dramatically reduce the risk of a pandemic isn't sound. Most foodborne zoonotic outbreaks come from livestock, particularly in cases of newly developed farmland encroaching on wild animals, and transmission to livestock does not present a significant barrier for a Novel Coronavirus or other pandemic disease. H5N1 for example spreads to humans predominantly via poultry. The Chinese government also already discourages the consumption of such animals, and it is unlikely that further policy would have much impact, and the political effort could be much better spent elsewhere.

It's not a harmful proposal or anything, I just don't think it would have much impact, and it fixates excessively on the particulars of two specific outbreaks.

⬐ Litmus2336

Yeah, people don't eat bushmeat and from the garbage can because they choose to - they have (or feel they have) no other choice.

⬐ riyadparvez

Exotic animals are not something poor people eat because they can't afford. It's absolutely the other way around. Exotic meats are mostly consumed by the powerful people as delicacies.

⬐ Litmus2336

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushmeat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildlife_trafficking_and_emerg...

I have no doubt that there are cases of wealthy people consuming exotic meat as a delicacy, but I would bet pound for pound it is largely people in poorer regions without much alternative.

Unfortunately I'm looking for real stats but am having trouble as most of the trade does not keep records, is illegal, etc

⬐ Leary

1. It's unlikely that this coronavirus was caused by the consumption of bats. It is more likely that it was transmitted through an intermediate host such as pangolin.

2. A very small minority of people in China consume exotic food not because they are cheap, but because they are more expensive and were considered prestigious.

3. There is now a very strong pushbacks against this culture from both the Chinese government and the vast majority of the Chinese people.

⬐ kazinator

Right, we should eat animals raised on antibiotics and grain in close quarters.

⬐ crispyambulance

> stop eating exotic wild animals

You're probably referring to the youtube disinformation that has been trotted around by right-wing media outlets as "the cause".

It may very well have come from bats. But bats can infect other animals, in various ways, including ones that are traded in live-animal markets.

This is not about cuisine.

⬐ geddy

>This is not about cuisine.

How can you even remotely suggest this when the proximity between humans and lifestock animals in horrible conditions is a primary driver of a) transmission of disease, as well as b) increasing resistance to antibiotics due to how much of them we pump into the animals, and then consume ourselves?

It absolutely _is_ about cuisine choices and the sooner we stop eating animals and animal products, the better.

⬐ oppositelock

Is there any evidence whatsoever that the current coronavirus outbreak was due to eating exotic animals.

Yes, the press has reported that a market in Wuhan sold exotic animals, but it seems this is uncorroborated, and after asking an acquaintance in Wuhan about it, I was told it's fake news, and that said market sells farmed animals as far as she's ever seen.

⬐ gbrown

Well, it's linked to bats (like many such illnesses). One of the biggest exposures to these animals is at such markets, so whether or not this particular outbreak is traced to a particular market is less important than generally lowering exposure.

⬐ riyadparvez

> Yes, the press has reported that a market in Wuhan sold exotic animals, but it seems this is uncorroborated, and after asking an acquaintance in Wuhan about it, I was told it's fake news, and that said market sells farmed animals as far as she's ever seen.

Fake news, seriously? There's an entire wikipedia article about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huanan_Seafood_Wholesale_Marke.... Please verify your own news source before spreading more fake news/

⬐ himinlomax

The Chinese government appears to be trying very hard to not be blamed for it and is spreading fake news of their own, which is what your acquaintance may be telling you.

⬐ gdubs

Animals are absolutely a primary vector for infectious disease. No, there's no definitive evidence as of yet of patient 0, though the cluster of early cases in China had strong connections to the wet market in Wuhan. It's not necessarily the eating of the animals directly, but indirectly – because wild animals are kept stressed, in cages, next to other domesticated animals and people.

Even with conventional animal agriculture, things like bird flu and swine flu are a serious threat.

⬐ simonblack

Probabilities. Any new disease is more likely to appear in the biggest population slice. The biggest population slice is China with (approx.) twenty percent of the world's population.