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The Case Against Wet Markets
The Atlantic ^ | APRIL 10, 2020 | Martha Cheng

Posted on 04/13/2020 4:14:41 PM PDT by nickcarraway

They are culturally meaningful—and not at all worth the health risks they pose.

A few weeks ago, before the coronavirus pandemic upended our daily lives, my Facebook feed surfaced a photo from 2018, in which I was cooking a chicken that had been slaughtered in front of me at a wet market in Essaouira, Morocco. Anthony Fauci may call wet markets an “unusual human-animal interaction,” but it wasn’t that long ago in America that chilled, mass-produced, and nationally distributed meats were regarded as unusual and inferior to backyard chickens.

Wherever I am in the world, I make it a point to visit links to the past. I’ve been to a rural slaughterhouse, killed a pig and chickens on a farm, and shopped and cooked food from wet markets, from Morocco to China. I can’t help but romanticize the markets, as an old way of life preserved against modernization, as a showcase of regional diversity and culture, and as a model of access to nonprocessed foods for various income levels. I’m not alone: These markets are often popular tourist destinations. And for the residents, these markets are essential, not despite China’s efforts at modernization, but perhaps because of them. In a report on wet markets in urban China, a shopper says, “Everything comes alive in the market. Sitting in the office, I have no sense of season. The seasonal, colorful, fresh food in wet markets tell me the season.”

But as the weeks on lockdown go by, and deaths mount from the coronavirus pandemic, we must ask ourselves: wet markets at what cost? It’s widely believed, but not proved, that the new coronavirus originated in a live-animal market in Wuhan, China; SARS is suspected to have originated in wildlife trade in Guangdong province. The exact origins of these diseases are hard to

(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: animals; china; coronavirus
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1 posted on 04/13/2020 4:14:41 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

After this pandemic, the entire world should refuse entry to people who have been in China until China outlaws and shuts down all wet markets. The entire world won’t - we won’t, but we should.


2 posted on 04/13/2020 4:17:59 PM PDT by AnotherUnixGeek
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To: nickcarraway

Wet market is not unique to China and not a problem by itself. The problem is sanitation and the types of animals eaten without veterinary inspection.


3 posted on 04/13/2020 4:20:36 PM PDT by NorseViking
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To: nickcarraway

DID the virus REALLY get transmitted to humans via these markets? Or is this yet another attack on culture and fresh-food. WE all know that Leftists. and animal rights activisits HATE animals for food anyway - What’s to stop them from using similar excuses to shut down other forms of markets or slaughterhouses?


4 posted on 04/13/2020 4:32:42 PM PDT by TheBattman (Democrats-Progressives-Marxists-Socialists - redundant labels.)
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To: TheBattman

We don’t have any evidence.


5 posted on 04/13/2020 4:34:33 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: NorseViking

Anyone who still thinks this virus came from a wet market is just not paying attention.

Smug writers opining on how the other half of the world should operate food markets is not going to go over very well. Getting you to abandon your own beliefs and culture at all costs is paramount for these globalists however, and they will use every crisis that comes along, whether real or imagined.


6 posted on 04/13/2020 4:35:30 PM PDT by Ragnar Danneskjöld
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To: nickcarraway

One hundred percent of the case against wet markets is a longing to establish militarily enforced colonial empires.

How about not telling people in other parts of the world how to eat, dress, think or what their religion must be.


7 posted on 04/13/2020 4:35:39 PM PDT by MrEdd (Caveat Emptor)
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To: AnotherUnixGeek

Then to be consistent, you had better shut down “wet-markets” (really somewhat of a misnomer) around the world, because they really aren’t so rare...

And to take it a step farther - what about when a group of guys go squirrel hunting, then get together to clean and dress them? Or the deer hunters who communally hang their deer then clean/butcher them? You know... slippery slopes and all.

Then again - I guess the name of this web site no longer applies - the whole “free” part?


8 posted on 04/13/2020 4:35:57 PM PDT by TheBattman (Democrats-Progressives-Marxists-Socialists - redundant labels.)
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To: nickcarraway

Thanks for posting.


9 posted on 04/13/2020 4:41:07 PM PDT by BunnySlippers (I love BULL MARKETS!!)
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To: nickcarraway


"The Case Against Wet Markets"

world's most useless article


10 posted on 04/13/2020 4:41:08 PM PDT by 867V309 (Lock Her Up)
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To: nickcarraway

I worked with a guy who delivered groceries for a local supermarket in the 1950s. He had drove a truck that had basic staples, coffee, flour, some fresh vegetables, milk, butter, and some canned goods. He had a regular route like a milk man through neighborhoods. Same time every other day. He also had chickens in a cage on top of the truck.

You picked out a chicken and he would wring its neck in your backyard.


11 posted on 04/13/2020 4:42:50 PM PDT by DugwayDuke ("A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest")
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To: Ragnar Danneskjöld
Anyone who still thinks this virus came from a wet market is just not paying attention.

It doesn't really matter whether COVID-19 came from a wet market. Strains of flu which have proven even more dangerous and kill upwards of 65,000 people per year just in the U.S. Are incubated in wet markets.

The Chinese claim that COVID-19 came from a wet market. Let's go with this for now and put pressure on them to close the operations down, for good.

Globalists are NOT the ones who would prosecute this case. The Gobalists are those who defend all cultures as equal and thus, one culture is not allowed to judge another culture. In this case, we need a judgement that wet markets are no longer safe for mankind on this green earth.

12 posted on 04/13/2020 4:45:47 PM PDT by the_Watchman
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To: TheBattman
Then again - I guess the name of this web site no longer applies - the whole “free” part?

Yeah, just look at all the freedom we're enjoying as our economy is shut down, 17 million jobs have evaporated and most of us are confined to our homes. The current pandemic likely crossed to the human population from pangolins sold in Chinese wet markets. The AIDS virus likely crossed to humans by the eating of monkeys by people in Africa.

I get that some people want to go kill wild animals and eat them - but we can't keep shutting down the entire planet so this tiny fraction of humanity can enjoy this "freedom".
13 posted on 04/13/2020 5:11:22 PM PDT by AnotherUnixGeek
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To: AnotherUnixGeek
The wet market is a diversion

It is an hour worth spent. Epoch Times video

14 posted on 04/13/2020 5:28:32 PM PDT by arthurus ( covfefe vizt)
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To: NorseViking
No. It's not. Not the Wet Markets
15 posted on 04/13/2020 5:29:39 PM PDT by arthurus ( covfefe vist)
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To: nickcarraway
You would think in a civilized society, one wouldn't have to make a "case" against wet markets.

I'm surprised China had the run they did. This is a culture that - on so many levels - is just NOT ready for the big stage.

16 posted on 04/13/2020 5:31:24 PM PDT by AAABEST (NY/DC/LA media/political/military industrial complex DELENDA EST)
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To: nickcarraway

.


17 posted on 04/13/2020 6:23:38 PM PDT by redinIllinois (Pro-life, accountant, gun-totin' Grandma - multi issue voter)
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To: nickcarraway

Yeah, but muzzies slaughtering goats and sheep for EID on their balconies in Paris no-go zones will be exempt.


18 posted on 04/13/2020 6:25:24 PM PDT by Tijeras_Slim
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To: Tijeras_Slim

This isn’t about France. And Muslims don’t get any special privileges in China.


19 posted on 04/13/2020 6:27:19 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: AnotherUnixGeek

I fully blame China for the virus. I blame feckless imbeciles in office for mismanaging and over-responding to the virus.

As to the “likely crossed to the human population from pangolins sold in...” we can stop right there, as this has already been fairly rebutted.

The biggest danger of wet markets is sanitation - you are more likely to get salmonella or another food-borne bacterial infection than a virus.

I think you are missing the entire point in your effort to find a boogieman to lay blame on. YOu might better start pointing fingers at the Communist Party that rules China - this is THEIR mess. You might point to US Politicians, especially if (after this all cools off), they don’t take serious action against China - they should be held up as the pariahs of the planet at this point. China has been systematically poisoning the world via contamination in foods, as well as hard goods. They are the #1 polluting nation, even beyond their population. They were never included in pollution restrictions in the Paris Accords or any other international limits (not that I favored them anyway - but it showed the great hypocrisy).

But back to the point at hand - These “wet markets” are not the reason we have a global financial meltdown and a bunch of sick people and a major flu-season death toll. It’s because China either intentionally or accidentally unleashed this virus on the world via their blatant dishonesty and flagrant efforts to hide it, then lie about. it’s nature and spread, then finally to shun international experts who offered to help them.


20 posted on 04/13/2020 6:39:09 PM PDT by TheBattman (Democrats-Progressives-Marxists-Socialists - redundant labels.)
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