Coronavirus 2019-2020 thread (no unsubstantiated rumours!)

[ougoah]

I am generally pretty positive towards the CCP and how they have handled COVId. But the one thing that still makes me angry is that China KNEW that wild animal markets were unsafe and a vector for viruses. Because SARS came from a wild animal market and is also a corona virus much like COVID-19. Why did the CCP not learn it's lesson from SARS and decisively shut down this industry?

-Its extremely dangerous

-It's not a massive contributor to GDP. Compared to the trillions lost in economic output.

-It's barbaric, disgusting and ruins China's international image (which first world country believes in things such as eating wild animals for superstitions)

-a small group of people who eat wild animals is exposing everyone to risk of a new virus.

I hope the CCP finally learned their lesson and will throw anyone who partakes in the wild animal industry in prison.

harsh punishments and Strict enforcement is needed.

If you sell wild animals - 100 year prison sentence

If you buy wild animals - 100 year prison sentence

If you eat wild animals - 100 year prison sentence

Being someone who also eats meat, I am not really in a position to judge anyone who has a wider meat palate than myself. Having said that the superstitious aspect needs to go. All the traditional medicines that involve animal parts and the other ridiculous beliefs that are simply too stupid to even mention. Before anyone jumps in, I am referring to those bear bile farms, exotic wild meat distributors etc. Even the conventional meat industry needs to continue improving safety standards. China isn't alone is suffering issues. These problems are actually rife within western meat industries too but they do seem to have much better enforcement practices and investigative authority than China bothers to uphold. The laws exist in China but people look the other way and people can get "persuaded".

Thankfully these things are absolutely on the way out and even the few dog eating communities are quickly being pressured to change. Younger generations do not even partake in these things anymore and it's already a tiny minority who do in this day and age. It's just that a tiny minority within China is nominally a huge number still.

On topic though. Covid-19 is unlikely to definitely not derived from bat eating which is only a practice done in some tiny villages in small pockets around China. None of the areas where bats have been a part of regional diet has had cases of covid before its major outbreaks in China. Maybe a few hundred people at best eat bats in absolute total within China. There is no freaking bat meat industry in China and till this day the China haters have not shown a single one despite them continuing to propagate this belief (mostly Indians who ironically eat bats in much higher numbers). They always use pictures from Indonesian and other markets outside China when they write those articles if one looks carefully. Those Chinese "menus" with bat parts are traditional medicine using dried or processes parts but yeah that's still got to go for sure not just because of health risks but rather those medicines have proven to do nothing and killing bats for no reason is stupidly pointless.

Covid has been found in Spain nearly a year before Wuhan found its "first" cases. There are well researched theories that support the idea that Covids been around for years if not decades and only recently mutated to becoming symptomatic etc. Bats carry coronavirus of many types just like many other animals. Even dogs and cats have been carrying plenty of coronavirus for as long as we've had domestic cats and dogs, same with humans.

 

[free_6ix9ine]

Being someone who also eats meat, I am not really in a position to judge anyone who has a wider meat palate than myself. Having said that the superstitious aspect needs to go. All the traditional medicines that involve animal parts and the other ridiculous beliefs that are simply too stupid to even mention. Before anyone jumps in, I am referring to those bear bile farms, exotic wild meat distributors etc. Even the conventional meat industry needs to continue improving safety standards. China isn't alone is suffering issues. These problems are actually rife within western meat industries too but they do seem to have much better enforcement practices and investigative authority than China bothers to uphold. The laws exist in China but people look the other way and people can get "persuaded".

Thankfully these things are absolutely on the way out and even the few dog eating communities are quickly being pressured to change. Younger generations do not even partake in these things anymore and it's already a tiny minority who do in this day and age. It's just that a tiny minority within China is nominally a huge number still.

100000% Agreed. Superstition is stupid. I think the CCP is also against superstition. But not sure why they allow tiger bones, and bear bile farms to continue.

In the first world countries, the farmers grow the food but they sell it to a packer who processes it and sells it to a distributor who then supplies supermarkets. In all these processes there are FDA and OSHA rules that they have to comply or get massive fines or even criminal penalties.

In third world countries, farmers grow the food and sells it at these outdoor markets. No rules, no audits, no fines, etc.

Which one does China want to copy?

 

[ougoah]

100000% Agreed. Superstition is stupid. I think the CCP is also against superstition. But not sure why they allow tiger bones, and bear bile farms to continue.

I think they don't really crack down on these things as much as they should because they understand these people usually have nothing else to do and will have no other income if they lose these businesses. So they're just letting these older people do their thing but slowly and surely Chinese attitudes will change towards totally rejecting these products and practices anyway. So the government doesn't bother doing that much since it's a self-limiting syndrome. After Covid you'll see even more dramatic rejection of these sorts of things within China if it weren't already strong enough. By now I'm sure even people in their 70s and 80s are thoroughly repulsed by these industries. The government doesn't need to do much.

These sorts of animal abuse and total lack of animal welfare and consideration was a result of a combination of poverty and traditional practices. Both are changing and improving. Animal abuse and exploitation is rife all over eastern Europe and it wasn't even that long ago since it was rife in the already developed west as well. Just like civil rights and progressiveness, attitudes towards animals have mostly come around in the west from the 1960s onwards. Of course China and most of Asia still have a fair way to go before attitudes and treatment truly match the west in this regard. It's definitely not a bad thing and a genuine moral failure to not improve. The government is unwilling to really do much because they understand things are improving and will continue to by themselves naturally. Awareness is pretty common now among the youths and will only get better.

 

[plawolf]

I am generally pretty positive towards the CCP and how they have handled COVId. But the one thing that still makes me angry is that China KNEW that wild animal markets were unsafe and a vector for viruses. Because SARS came from a wild animal market and is also a corona virus much like COVID-19. Why did the CCP not learn it's lesson from SARS and decisively shut down this industry?

-Its extremely dangerous

-It's not a massive contributor to GDP. Compared to the trillions lost in economic output.

-It's barbaric, disgusting and ruins China's international image (which first world country believes in things such as eating wild animals for superstitions)

-a small group of people who eat wild animals is exposing everyone to risk of a new virus.

I hope the CCP finally learned their lesson and will throw anyone who partakes in the wild animal industry in prison.

harsh punishments and Strict enforcement is needed.

If you sell wild animals - 100 year prison sentence

If you buy wild animals - 100 year prison sentence

If you eat wild animals - 100 year prison sentence

The focus on wet markets is just western propaganda attempts to try to assign blame to China for a purely natural event. Basically as soon as an outbreak happens in a non-white, non-western nation, the first thing that happens is the western MSM puts undue focus on different local customs to try to victim blame. It was the same with AIDS and Ebola.

Yet you didn’t hear anything like this kind of focus on the cause during the American Swine flu pandemic and lamenting about how factory farming was cruel and unnatural.

There are feather and fur fairs in pretty much all ‘civilised’ western countries which are basically the same thing as Chinese wet markets where all sorts of livestock are shown and traded. What more, the widespread tradition of hunting wild birds for food and fun in the west is also an easy vector for wild diseases to enter human circulation.

The primary difference is that most western nations are northern hemisphere, so don’t tend to have tropical zones with a lot of bats, which are massive viral incubators.

Besides, the wet market origin has never been proven, and actually seems increasingly in doubt given the fact that the earliest known patient inn Wuhan never went to the market and recent reports of Covid being found in sewer samples in European countries that massively pre-date the Wuhan outbreak.

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Ironically, it is people like you inside China, who hold an unfavourable view of tractional Chinese customs like wet markets, are the most responsible for assigning blame to wet markets because they automatically assumed the wet market was the source.

But if you have ever been to a wet market, you will know that wildlife trade is only a tiny tiny niche area, they are primarily focused on seafood and vegetables and domesticated livestock sales. The SARS outbreak was from domestic poultry, and occurred in China primarily down to bad luck and climate. It could have just as easily happened in a western feather and fur fair, or been brought into the human food chain by hunters.

I’m no fan of the wildlife trade and wise it was totally banned, but don’t be naive and think that doing so would eliminate the risks of another pandemic or that the western MSM would not latch onto another cultural difference and assign all blame to that in the future. When you boil it down to bare basics, the risks of a pandemic outbreak is mostly down to climate and sheer luck. That of the millions of wild animals consumed by humans globally each year, one holds a pathogen that can cross species and infect humans and is both deadly and highly infectious.

 

[Temstar]

The fact that we have seen:

1. Outbreak in Beijing from Xinfadi Market, probably centred on a fish shop selling imported salmon
2. Outbreak in Dalian, at a seafood processing place
3. Small outbreak in Guangdong, at a seafood section of supermarket
4. Small outbreak in Qingdao, at a dock with workers involved in unloading frozen imported seafood

Seems to suggest a pattern. Consider the fact that Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan is first and foremost a seafood market as the name suggets and not a market for selling bush meat.

 

[free_6ix9ine]

The focus on wet markets is just western propaganda attempts to try to assign blame to China for a purely natural event. Basically as soon as an outbreak happens in a non-white, non-western nation, the first thing that happens is the western MSM puts undue focus on different local customs to try to victim blame. It was the same with AIDS and Ebola.

Yet you didn’t hear anything like this kind of focus on the cause during the American Swine flu pandemic and lamenting about how factory farming was cruel and unnatural.

There are feather and fur fairs in pretty much all ‘civilised’ western countries which are basically the same thing as Chinese wet markets where all sorts of livestock are shown and traded. What more, the widespread tradition of hunting wild birds for food and fun in the west is also an easy vector for wild diseases to enter human circulation.

The primary difference is that most western nations are northern hemisphere, so don’t tend to have tropical zones with a lot of bats, which are massive viral incubators.

Besides, the wet market origin has never been proven, and actually seems increasingly in doubt given the fact that the earliest known patient inn Wuhan never went to the market and recent reports of Covid being found in sewer samples in European countries that massively pre-date the Wuhan outbreak.

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Ironically, it is people like you inside China, who hold an unfavourable view of tractional Chinese customs like wet markets, are the most responsible for assigning blame to wet markets because they automatically assumed the wet market was the source.

But if you have ever been to a wet market, you will know that wildlife trade is only a tiny tiny niche area, they are primarily focused on seafood and vegetables and domesticated livestock sales. The SARS outbreak was from domestic poultry, and occurred in China primarily down to bad luck and climate. It could have just as easily happened in a western feather and fur fair, or been brought into the human food chain by hunters.

I’m no fan of the wildlife trade and wise it was totally banned, but don’t be naive and think that doing so would eliminate the risks of another pandemic or that the western MSM would not latch onto another cultural difference and assign all blame to that in the future. When you boil it down to bare basics, the risks of a pandemic outbreak is mostly down to climate and sheer luck. That of the millions of wild animals consumed by humans globally each year, one holds a pathogen that can cross species and infect humans and is both deadly and highly infectious.

Sure, but regardless, we know for sure that these viruses jump from animals to humans. Wild amimal markets are dangerous because they are an avenue for a lot of people to get in contact with these animals. Increasing the probability that a virus can jump from wild animal to humans in an crowded urban area. Don't you think this is a unnecessary risk? There is no way of complete prevention. But with any thing it's always about risk reduction. Reducing the contact between people and wild animals or domesticated animals is a really easy step. Not sure why you would disagree.

Do you think that pangolin who was likely infected by a bat thousands of miles from Wuhan would have made it to huangnan market, and infected people in Wuhan, If people weren't eating wild life? How is that a natural event?

Ebola and HIV also comes from bush meat. So there is enough evidence for the CCP to shut down this trade for good.

Hindsight, if CCP had cracked down on live animal markets after SARS. Do you really think COVId would have happened?

 

[duncanidaho]

I am generally pretty positive towards the CCP and how they have handled COVId. But the one thing that still makes me angry is that China KNEW that wild animal markets were unsafe and a vector for viruses. Because SARS came from a wild animal market and is also a corona virus much like COVID-19. Why did the CCP not learn it's lesson from SARS and decisively shut down this industry?

SARS-Cov2 may first dicovered in Wuhan, but it may not possibly originated there.

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"Exclusive: Covid-19 may not have originated in China, Oxford University expert believes
By Sarah Knapton, Science Editor 5 July 2020 • 4:41pm

4-5 Minuten


Coronavirus may have lain dormant across the world and emerged when the environmental conditions were right for it to thrive rather than starting in China, an Oxford University expert believes.
Dr Tom Jefferson, senior associate tutor at the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM), at Oxford and a visiting professor at Newcastle University, argues there is growing evidence that the virus was elsewhere before it emerged in Asia.
Last week, Spanish virologists announced that they had found traces of the disease in samples of waste water collected in March 2019, nine months before coronavirus was seen in China.
Italian scientists have also found evidence of coronavirus in sewage samples in Milan and Turin in mid-December, many weeks before the first case was detected, while experts have found evidence of traces in Brazil in November.
Dr Jefferson believes many viruses lie dormant throughout the globe and emerge when conditions are favourable, which also means they can vanish as quickly as they arrive.
"Where did

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? It's just disappeared," he said. "So we have to think about these things. We need to start researching the ecology of the virus, understanding how it originates and mutates.
"I think the virus was already here – here meaning everywhere. We may be seeing a dormant virus that has been activated by environmental conditions.
"There was a case in the Falkland Islands in early February. Now where did that come from? There was a cruise ship that went from South Georgia to Buenos Aires, and the passengers were screened and then on day eight, when they started sailing towards the Weddell Sea, they got the first case. Was it in prepared food that was defrosted and activated?
"Strange things like this

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. In 1918, around 30 per cent of the population of Western Samoa died of Spanish Flu, and they hadn't had any communication with the outside world.
"The explanation for this could only be that these agents don't come or go anywhere. They are always here and something ignites them, maybe human density or environmental conditions, and this is what we should be looking for."
Dr Jefferson believes the virus may be transmitted through the sewage system or shared toilet facilities, not just through droplets expelled by talking, coughing and sneezing.
Writing in The Telegraph, Dr Jefferson and Professor Carl Henegehan, director of the CEBM,

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similar to that carried out by John Snow in 1854 to show that cholera was spreading in London from an infected well in Soho.
Exploring why

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could uncover major new transmission routes, they believe. It may be shared toilet facilities, coupled with cool conditions, that allow the virus to thrive.
"We're doing a living review, extracting environmental conditions, the ecology of these viruses which has been grossly understudied," said Dr Jefferson.
"There is quite a lot of evidence that huge amounts of the virus were in sewage all over the place, and an increasing amount of evidence there is faecal transmission. There is a high concentration where sewage is four degrees, which is the ideal temperature for it to be stabled and presumably activated. And meat-packing plants are often at four degrees.
"These meat-packing clusters and isolated outbreaks don't fit with respiratory theory, they fit with people who haven't washed their hands properly.
"These outbreaks need to be investigated properly with people on the ground one by one. You need to do what John Snow did. You question people and you start constructing hypotheses that fit the facts, not the other way around."

 

[supersnoop]

100000% Agreed. Superstition is stupid. I think the CCP is also against superstition. But not sure why they allow tiger bones, and bear bile farms to continue.

In the first world countries, the farmers grow the food but they sell it to a packer who processes it and sells it to a distributor who then supplies supermarkets. In all these processes there are FDA and OSHA rules that they have to comply or get massive fines or even criminal penalties.

In third world countries, farmers grow the food and sells it at these outdoor markets. No rules, no audits, no fines, etc.

Which one does China want to copy?

Slightly off-topic
Not condoning bear bile farms, but there is some research that shows beneficial properties of bear bile. A lot of research is being done on it

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Google will bring up many reputable sources

 

[plawolf]

Sure, but regardless, we know for sure that these viruses jump from animals to humans. Wild amimal markets are dangerous because they are an avenue for a lot of people to get in contact with these animals. Increasing the probability that a virus can jump from wild animal to humans in an crowded urban area. Don't you think this is a unnecessary risk? There is no way of complete prevention. But with any thing it's always about risk reduction. Reducing the contact between people and wild animals or domesticated animals is a really easy step. Not sure why you would disagree.

Do you think that pangolin who was likely infected by a bat thousands of miles from Wuhan would have made it to huangnan market, and infected people in Wuhan, If people weren't eating wild life? How is that a natural event?

Ebola and HIV also comes from bush meat. So there is enough evidence for the CCP to shut down this trade for good.

Hindsight, if CCP had cracked down on live animal markets after SARS. Do you really think COVId would have happened?

Firstly, you realise that the exotic animals on sale on wet markets are not actually captured wild animals but farmed like chickens and pigs right? The risks are the same.

Secondly, as already pointed out, the Wuhan wet market has never been proven to be the actual injection source, and the latest research and evidence is increasingly pointing away from the wet market as the actual origin of the crossover and outbreak. It is likely a venue where the virus started to spread widely, but that can happen at any public venue with high footfall.

And thirdly, Ebola and HIV true origins has similarly never been traced, and were merely attributed to bushmeat. But that just seems like simplistic western victim blaming, and dangerously short sighted as the true infection source could be something else and entirely ignored if we just arbitrarily attribute the cause to any local customs the west find objectionable. That is likely the reason for why Ebola keeps coming back with increasing frequency in recent years while it was first discovered in 1976, and was probably around long before then, yet the locals would have been eating bushmeat all the same throughout history. If there is a direct link between bushmeat and Ebola, rest assured the locals would avoid bushmeat like the plague, because it would be just that to them.

It’s the same with HIV in the west. For decades it was commonly accepted to be a disease spread through questionable and ‘unclean’ sexual practices, with victims wrongly stigmatised while the outbreak spread largely unchecked because the general populous thought it was only the ‘morally corrupt’ and ‘perverted’ who got it and so they were safe as ‘normal upstanding citizens of high moral caliber’. That is the danger of such victim blaming and rushing to attribute outbreak sources and linking it with subjective moral beliefs western cultural norms rather than taking a scientific, evidence driven approach.

 

[plawolf]

Just to add, that of all countries, China has been far and away the most thorough and relentless in dealing with the outbreak.

It is still the only country where a major, full scale outbreak was entirely contained and eradicated, while the best the west can manage is to flatten the curve and reduce the speed of the spread; while ‘golden standard’ examples lionised in the west either managed to prevent a major outbreak through boarder controls, or only had minor outbreaks.

If wet markets were truly the source, you can rest assured that China would not hesitate to close them. It has most certainly not shied away from facing hard truths and making difficult calls, which is how they managed to bring the outbreak under control and fully eradicate it domestically.

With the actual results clear for all to see, I will take China’s evidence and scientific based assessments over the west’s moralistic and racists theorybashing any day of the week.