151–160 of 222 posts
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American Swine Flu in 2009 killed tens of thousands of people. To say it could not have happened anywhere is wrong.
I believe the parent comment meant the frequency of these viruses coming out of wet market environments is higher than other agricultural practices.
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I agree, demonizing the Chinese people is the worst thing anyone can do. They didn't want this virus either, but they taught us how we can contain it, and they paid the price with countless human lives. The CCP is the one that needs to be made responsible. However, they will label any attempt from the west as racism towards the Chinese, to avoid having to take up that responsibility. Change will only happen when it d…
Should we be sanctioned for creating mad cow?
The phrase I really liked for these sort of articles are 'Intellectual zambonis". Here come the right wing intellectuals to buff over the rampant xenophobia and put a sheen of intellectual justification behind it. Let us be clear about this: A 'wet market' is > a market selling fresh meat, fish, produce, and other perishable goods as distinguished from "dry markets" which sell durable goods such as fabric and electro…
Keeping live animals for long periods of times in close proximity to food is a recipe for pandemics. This is the 4th caused under such circumstances in recent memory. Closing the markets is the most straightforward solution. We must be decisive about this, it's the only reasonable option.
They don't keep live fruit bats in African markets. Ebola happened nonetheless.
In fact, keeping live animals is a very sensible thing to do when there is no cold chain. It is the traditional way to insure that the meat you buy is safe(ish).
Totally asinine to deplore the wet markets and not the horrors of what we're doing to other sentient species.
This sounds very anti-indigenous. There is nothing wrong with hunting.
Time to reban them. They were banned after SARS and that worked, no new diseases from China for a few years. Then they were permitted again and we got MERS and now COVID-19. China needs to learn its lesson for good this time...
Just point out MERS originated in the middle east. And then there is also Australia’s 1994 Hendra virus outbreak where corona viruses made the jump from flying foxes to horses. People working with the infected horses fell ill and two died. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henipavirus#Hendra_virus Also human to human orthohantavirus in South America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andes_orthohantavirus So it's not just Ch…
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> Further it brings into question the items that are good or bad. Is "Racoon Dog" ok or not? Can they sell "Bats"? As far as I understand things (which is only from reading articles and watching YouTube videos of people visiting these markets), most of the animals like bats, civets, pangolins, etc. that are implicated in zoonotic diseases are delicacies rather than staples. If they were banned, nobody would starve.
French eat snails and frogs. Australians eat kangaroos. Americans eat alligators. People across the world eat local food as delicacies or sometimes as staple foods. What is so different about Chinese wildlife? What matters and should be fixed is sanitary standards, not what kind of meat the Chinese eat.
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/where-coronavirus... https://www.the-scientist.com/notebook/why-bats-make-such-go... http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nature22975
The research on Chinese coronavirus outbreaks indicates that bats are a large reservoir for these viruses, and they frequently infect other animals, but it is difficult to pinpoint the final jump to humans exactly. Given the unique status of bats in this regard, it's probably best to keep live ones away from humans or other animals intended for human consumption.
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I believe the parent comment meant the frequency of these viruses coming out of wet market environments is higher than other agricultural practices.
Is there data to back that up?
It's important not to demonize Chinese people here. However, it's at the very least equally important to ensure that their agricultural practices stop producing these pandemic viruses. This is not the first one. Not even close. This is not one of those things that could have happened anywhere and the Chinese were simply unlucky. This is a direct consequence of their agricultural practices and it is extremely importan…
Traditional Medicine is a disgrace. As is any other kind of “alternative” medicine regardless of which culture it springs from. It’s either medicine or it’s not medicine; there is no third category. The people peddling this stuff either either know it doesn’t work or they have no idea if it works or even harms their patients. They’re charlatans and it’s one driver for extinction worldwide. It’s the same kind of perni…