Western countries separate the animal pen (feces and earth and all other body fluids), from slaughter. And further separates slaughter from market consumers.
And the people involved in each process rarely have contact. And there are fairly strict regimes and record keeping along the way, along with spot inspections for verification.
In China it’s all mixed together in the same place and there are no inspection, and fewer rules.
China is the perfect soup for zoonotic viral evolution and refinement.
None better could be designed by the best scientists.
Terrible. And while I know diseases like Ebola originate in Congo and whatnot...but I don’t seem to hear the same about other countries, even 3rd world ones...
Excellent epidemiological assessment.
Years ago the U.S. had an outbreak of “swine flu”. It was recognized that most flu variants, including this one, originated in China. The explanation at the time was that there were still lots of households which had pigs cohabiting with people. This was blamed on most of the flu variants.