zlacker

SARS was proven to come from wetmarkets back in 2003. They were banned by China, then unbanned later.

>>iso121+(OP)
China has never banned wet markets. A wet market is just a place that sells fresh meat or vegetables. The butcher who supplies your favorite restaurant is a wet market. The fruit & veg stand where you buy organic heirloom tomatoes is a wet market. Every farmer's market is a wet market.

"Wet market" just distinguishes from "dry market" where durable goods like electronics are sold.

China never banned wet markets, which makes about as much sense as saying someone has "banned supermarkets". They banned the sale of certain items at wet markets.

(I live in Asia and shop at a wet market multiple times a week.)

>>freddi+78
People use wet market synonymously with 'exotic wildlife market' that sell living caged animals in outdoor unsanitary conditions. Often cages stacked on top of each other.

Factory farming of eg, chickens and pigs has previously led to avian and swine flu outbreaks, so there's strict monitoring of viruses around those farm monocultures. But in the wet markets of Asia there's often multiple species together that would rarely encounter each other in the wild.

Traditional Chinese Medicine uses bat feces, pangolin scales and other exotic products, with an emphasis on live animals. Bats and pangolins are a vector for virus and cross-species virus transmission.

Moving wet markets indoors into sanitary conditions, and banning the sale of live produce would go a long way to preventing future outbreaks.

>>somepe+sb
Some people might use it that way.

No one who lives in Asia around wet markets uses it that way.

Regardless, it doesn't change my point that China never banned wet markets, not even for one day.

>>freddi+yc
But they should be, because research and reasoning indicate that Chinese wet-markets are uniquely dangerous in their propensity to create, or spread, novel viruses.

See "Infectious diseases emerging from Chinese wet-markets: zoonotic origins of severe respiratory viral infections" [2006]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16940861/

>>freddi+78
They banned wet markets from holding wildlife

>>somepe+sb
Probably just means market not for dry goods