
Time to Ban Wet Markets - Reedx
https://spectator.us/time-ban-wet-markets/
======
darawk
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 important that those change. Some
level of international shame may be appropriate here to ensure that that
happens, and as always it's important that that not steer into racism.
However, if a little bit of cultural shaming works towards preventing the next
pandemic, then I think that's pretty well worth it at this point.

~~~
jonny_eh
> This is a direct consequence of their agricultural practices

It's also a result of people, around the world (but mostly in China), buying
into Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). It creates a market for products
based on wild animals like bats and pangolins, which this virus originated
from.

~~~
JohnJamesRambo
It is utterly bizarre to believe that eating different animal flesh will
provide some sort of unique medicinal properties. It’s all pretty much muscle
or fat tissue which is all very similar between wildly different organisms.
Animals aren’t like plants or fungi which make a huge library of secondary
metabolite compounds that do work as medicine. Like all archaic belief
systems, let us hope that with enough time the light of science shines in.

~~~
juiyout
It may be bizarre. I grew up on traditional Chinese medicine in Taiwan. Vast
majority I had was various types of plants like you mentioned in power,
pellet, or pill form very similar to western medicine. There is some medicine
extracted from animal products like musk, honey, etc, though much less used.

There are major efforts in Taiwan's universities to reinterpret TCM with
contemporary science methodology. In term of manufacturing, the process is
very far from the image of a "wet market". Acupuncture & Tuina, as part of
TCM, have been applied on athletes around the world.

Due to my first hand account of TCM, I'm unable to dismiss TCM just as easily
as you.

One thing I like to point out though, Taiwan's regulations on wild life and
traditional medicine may be what China currently needs to curtail future
potential outbreaks. As you know, TCM is tremendously popular in Taiwan yet
Taiwan doesn't produce outbreaks like its neighbors does.

------
derefr
So, what’s the difference between a “wet market” and the sort of familiar
farmer’s market of butchers/fishmongers/etc. that five-star restaurants source
from all over the world?

This article seems to be doing a motte-and-bailey of grossing you out with
things that are just “regular meat wholesaler things” (e.g. fresh meat sitting
out on ice without refrigeration) and then moralizing about the specific
_kinds_ of meats available in certain markets in China.

As far as I can tell, the author really just wants to tell Chinese people to
stop eating certain meats (pragmatically, bush meats; but also, less
pragmatically, whatever a Westerner would find gauche, like endangered species
or things we’d consider pets), but doesn’t want to come out and say what they
really mean; and so instead tries to seem like they’re making a point about
sanitation. In so doing, they end up arguing against the existence of
wholesale meat markets in general, which is clearly silly: meat wholesaling
happens all over the world every day and is perfectly sanitary, despite
_seeming_ to a layman like it’d be unsanitary. (It _is_ unsanitary in some
ways, but in general principle—which can certainly be violated, like any other
standard can—it’s always exactly as sanitary as it needs to be for any given
use-case. Meats that are cooked get treated with less care; meats that are
served raw are treated with more.)

This sort of reminds me of the parable of the new owner who came into a bakery
and demanded it be cleaned because everything was greasy. The bakers kindly
informed them that the grease was intentionally put on every surface, right
after cleaning; and that, in fact, grease is used _to_ clean some surfaces.
Some systems function perfectly well in ways that seem disturbing to
outsiders. If the bakers have been greasing the bakery for thousands of years,
and you’ve never gotten sick from a loaf of bread, then maybe think a moment
before telling the bakers to stop greasing the bakery.

Certainly, if you buy a loaf of bread and it turns out to have a bunch of
thumbtacks in it, there’s a problem. But not one, I would suspect, endemic to
the concept of bakeries.

~~~
kccqzy
> So, what’s the difference between a “wet market” and the sort of familiar
> farmer’s market of butchers/fishmongers/etc. that five-star restaurants
> source from all over the world?

That's exactly the question I have. How are these Chinese markets
fundamentally different from, say, the Japanese Tsukiji fish market? Taking a
look at pictures like
[https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vendors_begin_sell...](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vendors_begin_selling_their_fish_at_4am_at_the_Tsukiji_fish_market.jpg)
it doesn't strike me as very much different from the Chinese wet markets.

~~~
tathougies
In a wet market, animals are alive: [https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-
coronavirus-chinese-we...](https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-
chinese-wet-market-photos-2020-1#reports-indicate-that-before-the-huanan-
market-closed-vendors-there-sold-seafood-meat-and-live-animals-including-
chickens-donkeys-sheep-pigs-foxes-badgers-bamboo-rats-hedgehogs-and-snakes-2)

------
Whatarethese
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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPpoJGYlW54)

------
snthd
[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/18/tip-
of-t...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/18/tip-of-the-
iceberg-is-our-destruction-of-nature-responsible-for-covid-19-aoe)

>“The wet market in Lagos is notorious. It’s like a nuclear bomb waiting to
happen. But it’s not fair to demonise places which do not have fridges. These
traditional markets provide much of the food for Africa and Asia,”

------
christiansakai
I remember when I was small, I accompanied my mom to a wet market, and saw a
frog butchered in front of my eyes (chopped into two horizontal cut), and that
gave me chills till this day that I actually don't eat frog meat. I do other
stuffs though and have no problem handling knife for meat work.

On the other hand, wet market like Tokyo's Tsukiji is very fresh and clean.
Actually, wet markets through Japan are usually really fresh and clean, and
have no noticeable smell. I wonder how they do that.

Traditional Chinese culture at it again. Seems like another tool for CCP to
control its people, and "culture" is just an excuse. They do the same thing
for traditional Chinese martial art vs MMA as well (see the whole Xu Xiaodong
fiasco).

~~~
tmh79
the issue isn't seafood (living or dead) its live mammals and birds. Tsujiki
doesn't sell any mammals/birds and the vast majority of what is sold there is
long dead, so its fine. The issue is when you have lots of bats/pigs/birds/etc
in close proximity.

~~~
christiansakai
Right, I think that makes sense.

------
frei
This author is making a bunch of tenuous equivalencies. A wet market does not
have to have exotic animals, live birds or live mammals, undomesticated
animals, or be dirty.

There are markets that get emptied out and thoroughly cleaned every night, and
sellers bring fresh fish and domesticated slaughter every morning.

A call for the wholesale ban of wet markets without acknowledging that plenty
of safe wet markets exist is hard to take seriously.

------
cageface
Or just stop eating meat altogether. There are diseases and potent antibiotic
resistant bugs brewing in our factory farms in the west too. None of this is
necessary for human health or nutrition.

~~~
enchiridion
That's simply not true. My life has drastically improved since I reduced carbs
and increased meat consumption.

This is not anecdata either, there are well done studies supporting this.

~~~
cageface
Reducing processed carbs is a good idea. Complex whole carbs are fine and the
foundation of the diets of the healthiest populations in the world.

------
dluan
I'm terrified that this outbreak is giving us a taste of the ecofascism that
we're in for with the climate crisis, because now authors like this one can
just outright say the quiet part loud.

~~~
thundergolfer
Which particular bit is fascist? I agree that ecofascism could very well be on
the horizon, but reading this article I missed any quiet racism/fascism said
loudly.

------
datnoblesavage
Totally asinine to deplore the wet markets and not the horrors of what we're
doing to other sentient species.

~~~
adultSwim
This sounds very anti-indigenous. There is nothing wrong with hunting.

~~~
arcticbull
I don't think that's what they meant. I read that as there's no material
difference between factory farming and wet markets.

~~~
datnoblesavage
No moral difference, but yes you got it.

------
LatteLazy
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...

~~~
Gibbon1
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henipavirus#Hendra_virus)

Also human to human orthohantavirus in South America.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andes_orthohantavirus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andes_orthohantavirus)

So it's not just China here. People can dream of punishing China all they want
but the basic problem isn't going away.

~~~
LatteLazy
I am aware, though I thought MERS originated in a (non Chinese) wet market
(turns out no one knows) .

You can't stop it happening naturally. That's just life. You can stop shitty
wet markets and poor hygiene/food safety causing it to happen regularly. And
you can stop letting it spread because you the CCP can't handle bad news.

I don't care which animals people eat or what country their in. But if the way
they behave causes these viruses, they need to change. If they won't, we need
to stop trading with them and prevent all travel between us. That's not
punishment, it's public safety.

~~~
Gibbon1
Don't get me wrong I think wet markets, especially ones that deal with wild
caught animals need to be shutdown. That needs to be a worldwide priority.

~~~
LatteLazy
Sorry, I assumed you were defending them. It's definately true that virus (and
other pathogens) jump species in nature. We just need to stop accelerating the
process...

------
amluto
Ignoring the over the top description of the wet markets, I have two other
major problems with this article:

1\. It seems that COVID-19 may not have come from the market in the first
place:

[https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-may-not-
ha...](https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-may-not-have-
originated-from-wet-market-2020-1?op=1)

2\. TCM may have its flaws, but it has its successes too. Artemisinin comes to
mind: TCM appears to have been spot on and led to the best currently available
treatment for malaria.

------
yters
How do we know the wet market is responsible?

------
stuartd
The best argument I heard against this was - if you ban them, you just drive
them underground. Where there can (by definition) be no regulation.

------
Leary
Let's think about how these viruses occur.

They jump from one species of animal (dead or alive) to humans.

How can we pragmatically reduce the risk?

1\. Ban markets where two different species are kept close to each other.

2\. Identify species that are high risk. Ban eating them if they are not
essential (other than domesticated animals).

3\. For domesticated animals, have tough safety regulations.

4\. For villages/cities near wild populations of high risk exotic animals
(bats), have a system of monitoring.

5\. Provide new jobs for people that are affected by the above restrictions so
we don't drive them underground away from regulations.

~~~
fspeech
Wild bats can live atop a market or somewhere else with feces picked up by
animals living below. Also patient zero is thought to be not associated with
the Huanan Market, although the first discovered major cluster did happen
there.

------
pcvarmint
The evidence up to now, indicates that the coronavirus did not start at a wet
market. Patient 0 did not get it at the wet market.

------
pazimzadeh
Time to ban monoculture, dumping toxic mutagens into the environment, and
overuse of antibiotics amongst other drugs.

------
mc3
> Chinese folks with rural roots still associate freshness with how recently
> the meat was slaughtered. This is why sellers keep their animals alive and
> only butcher them before their customers’ eyes.

Anecdotally: I ate the best tasting salmon I've had for a long while. It was
frozen salmon from ALDI.

------
ykevinator
Why is this flagged

------
grugagag
Great, this gets flagged because...

------
JarlUlvi
The patient zero allegedly had no link to the seafood market at Wuhan, but
let's ban them anyways?

[https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736\(20\)30183-5/fulltext)

------
brodouevencode
Why not fix the root of the problem and remove the totalitarian socialist
regime forcing it's citizens to resort to eating wild animals from
questionable sources because of the lack of economic opportunity available to
them. Forgive the crassness there but in a fairer less restrictive economy
this almost certainly wouldn't have been a problem.

~~~
adultSwim
Amazon having centralized control is OK but a government having control is
not?

China was able to effectively mobilize in ways that are putting us to shame.
We should follow their lead and our own path to success in WWII.

~~~
brodouevencode
The difference being Amazon could and would have competitors. The CCP does
not, by the force of a gun.

------
mschuster91
I agree with the general aims of the article, but I doubt that the demand that
the author makes - that China closes its wet markets - will be practically
doable.

With a billion people that have no reason to trust their government, it's
going to be _hard_ to convince them to drop what they and their families had
learned with blood during the Mao-era famines.

~~~
cleansy
China's leadership can relocate half a million people when they want to build
a dam. They will be able to crack down on wet markets. The current pandemic
should be the last one happening in a non-war setting. I can write this here
from home in Europe and it will end up on a disk somewhere in the US within
13ms, we should be able to prevent man-made pandemics.

~~~
fragmede
Authoritarian regimes have less control over their populace than you imagine.
The War on Drugs is a laughable failure the whole world over, and China is no
exception. If something as unsavory as drugs, which are easily condemned, are
able to survive and continue, even under the CCP, how successful will a law
against wet markets be, when the populace is in favor of it?

The issue with authoritarianism in this case, is that a fear of looking bad;
weak, or ineffectual, caused mid-level party leaders to try and hide the
reality of the situation, with disastrous results. (That Trumpism has lead the
US in the same, disastrous direction is shameful. I don't know enough about
the cause in Italy to comment about the failures there.)

It's funny you should bring up the Five Eyes intelligence alliance (assuming
that's what your Europe-US ping time is referring to). We had knowledge of "an
unknown virus" as early as _November_. That no one paid attention to it is a
_human_ failing, not a technology issue.

------
typeformer
Perhaps also a global ban on viral gain of function research at BSL 4 labs,
for a bit at least.

------
Traster
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
> electronics

Fish & Meat counters exist at literally every large supermarket in the UK, is
she planning on banning Billingsgate Market? Or, have we just come up with a
term 'wet market' \- that no one actually has heard before, dressed it up as
some asian odity and then decided we need to ban it?

Wet markets aren't a particularly likely place for pandemics to spawn from
(let's ignore the fact that there a _literally_ hundreds of thousands of them
operating every day). We're not fighting off dozens of epidemics. The thing
that enables these outbreaks is bad food hygeine standards, and that doens't
improve by banning anything we've decided is vaguely foreign and scary.

Here's a Michelin starred chef going to a wet market to find you the highest
quality fish to cook:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GTTXJKZ08Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GTTXJKZ08Q)

~~~
enchiridion
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.

~~~
mytailorisrich
Keeping live animals in markets is not the issue.

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).

------
mytailorisrich
We should refrain from giving way to blatant racism, like for example calling
on purpose this virus the "Chinese virus".

There is no evidence at all that 'wet markets' are the source of this.

If there is an issue it is the hunting of wild animal for food and that is not
specific to China, see Ebola, etc.

~~~
RobertDeNiro
There is quite a bit of evidence actually. People are always quick to defend
wet markets when they serve no real purpose over traditional markets.

~~~
mytailorisrich
There isn't. A wet market is a traditional market...

------
arcticbull
> Under starvation conditions, does it really matter what vessel of bodily
> flesh was delivering your next caloric intake? Why would you squander any
> body part?

Why would you ever waste part of something you killed for sustenance? Waste is
waste.

> There’s an old Cantonese saying that goes, ‘anything that walks, swims,
> crawls, or flies with its back to heaven is edible’.

I mean, it is, and frequently, it's delicious. Meat is meat, ya know, I care
more about how the animal lived up until it ended up on my plate, not what
animal specifically (so long as it's not endangered).

> The myth that freshly killed animals taste superior is very pervasive,
> particularly among the older generation. ‘Freshly killed hens are much
> better than frozen meat in supermarkets, if you want to make perfect chicken
> soup,’ a 60-year-old woman named Ran told Bloomberg while shopping at a
> Chinese wet market. ‘The flavor is richer.’

It probably is.

------
lucian1900
It's not actually known yet what the source of Covid19 is. There's some
evidence it may have originated in the US, partly confirmed by the CDC
[https://twitter.com/BlackHammerOrg/status/124032448907179212...](https://twitter.com/BlackHammerOrg/status/1240324489071792128)

In addition, factory farming is arguably worse than wet markets, with plenty
of diseases originating from it so far.

~~~
thundergolfer
We should ban both factory farming and wet markets. If people want to ban the
latter and not the former, they’re either ignorant of the massive problems
with factory farming or have a super dubious double standard.

