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seven

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11 minutes ago, seven said:

...and something needs to be done, and someone might needs to be accountable for the worst crisis we've seen so far in our lives.

The cover-up in the beginning of covid-19 is just as bad.

I don't trust the numbers coming out from China now. Its not like their actions before made them more trustworthy.

Ya their numbers are total bullshit, not even close to being truthful or accurate 

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some place in China are getting back to business as the Americans have been measuring the pollution and heat emination from office buildings and its back to normal in a lot of places.

Some provinces will be more relaxed than others. The actual figures though are bound to massaged to a degree ....i agree

I have some business in Ningbo and Shanghai and they are doing ok right now ... they are shipping orders

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Unfortunately possibly infected stuff is also a problem in civilized nations. Reportedly 180,000 pounds of African "bush meat" is smuggled into the US in a year. A possible source of all kind of bad things including ebola. And we can't even stop it in the US. Do a web search for African bush meat and pick the news source of you choice.

 

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11 hours ago, rxpharm said:

- this has been a common practice in many countries that have a history of scarce resources. 

I thought these wet markets in china were a delicacy kind of thing for aphrodisiacs and so on...  .. not for the underfed . They have them in Hong Kong also but im not sure they are for the poorest there.... i think i see them in Taiwan as well and they are pretty well off. The issue in China is all the different types of livestock in the mix causes the animals stress and immune drop off and so the virus is in heaven

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Here's a good article from the Los Angeles Times that gives a good back ground to wet markets and wild animal markets.

Quote
By CHRISTOPHER ST. CAVISH
MARCH 11, 2020
6 AM
SHANGHAI — 

 

As some media outlets cover the coronavirus, journalists are mixing up wet markets and wildlife markets. But most wet markets are not wildlife markets, and confusing the two is dangerous.

“Wet” markets are what China calls its fresh food markets, the kind you see all over the developing world and in many parts of Europe, where small stalls sell fresh vegetables and butchers sell meat, primarily pork. They are the daily market for tens of millions of Chinese who prefer to talk to the people who sell them produce, meat, seafood and tofu, and in small cities, are often the only outlet for small-scale farmers who can’t meet the supplier requirements for supermarkets. (Still, it’s important to differentiate: Most wet markets, especially in big cities, may look like farmers markets but are buying from the same wholesale suppliers as supermarkets.)

They are a cornerstone of China’s food distribution system and have benefits for society both tangible and intangible, from improved nutrition for children to stronger interpersonal relationships. So-called for their open-air origins, where the ground was hosed down throughout the day, they are the traditional backbone to China’s food supply system.

In an aesthetic sense, they are an antidote to the sterile, plastic-wrapped world of the supermarkets that have tried unsuccessfully to replace them. In the early 2000s, China implemented a policy called nong gai chao or replacing wet markets with supermarkets, in a bid to upgrade cities and modernize wet markets. After a couple of years, and a boom in the number of supermarkets from foreign companies like Carrefour and local ones like Hualian, customers stuck by their wet markets for most fresh food and turned to supermarkets for supplemental shopping and dry goods.

Wet markets are a reserve of diversity in an age of consolidation and streamlining and a hedge against the supermarketization of China’s food. Far from being replaced by supermarkets, wet markets have made improvements in sanitation and hygiene and are still thriving. In Shanghai alone, there were nearly 1,000 as of 2019. After a several-month renovation, my daily wet market in Shanghai’s former French Concession reopened last month with terrazzo floors and windowed doors. It is not the norm; it is a model.

On a social level, wet markets are important as a way to pass down cultural food knowledge. Stallholders often make recommendations for which vegetables traditionally go together and how to cook them. They discuss which vegetables are in season, coming into season or going out of season. They foster long-term relationships between customers and stallholders, creating a personal bond hard to find in a supermarket.

And their business model often means lower prices. Although both supermarkets and wet markets in China often buy from the same wholesale suppliers, supermarkets generally bring in their vegetables the evening before they go on sale to clean, weigh and package; on the other hand, wet market vendors, who are individual small business owners, start their day at 4 a.m. with a trip to the wholesale market before a 6 a.m. start at the wet market and spend their day pruning and misting vegetables as they sell. The result is that their vegetables and produce look fresher, and their reduced overhead (supermarkets incur high labor, rent and stocking fees) translates into lower prices.

On a broader level, having wet markets available is good for the health of neighborhood children, particularly of low-income families. According to a 2012 study based on China Health and Nutrition Survey data, the density of wet markets in China positively predicted children’s nutritional intake. Basically, the study found, when families have access to wet markets, children eat less manufactured supermarket food, which has higher amounts of added salt and sugar. The markets also provide one of a limited number of avenues for rural migrants to make a relatively high income and move up the social ladder.

The issue, according to numerous op-ed articles, is when wildlife is introduced into this system. Rightly, critics note that bringing stressed animals of different species, who are all shedding different diseases, into close proximity and without any supervision, is, let’s say, not good for hygiene. At worst, it may provide the breeding ground for COVID-19, SARS and the avian flu.

The attention-grabbing koala and wolf cub price list touted in Western media is likely exaggerated, but the general point remains true: China has a taste for exotic meat. In my 15 years in China, I’ve been offered camel hump at a major Chinese chain, muntjac at a secret wild game restaurant in Pudong and legal peacock in Yunnan, have watched a bamboo rat butchered and cooked by a popular online chef and seen a crocodile, mouth tied shut, hidden under a bench at a downtown Shanghai seafood market. Snake is more than a delicacy; by one count, Shanghai has more than 800 shops serving water snakes, king snakes and more.

Yet a taste for the exotic is not the problem. Where I’m from, in South Florida, people now patrol backyards in search of iguanas for the dinner table; restaurants serve BBQ alligator ribs; and it’s possible to order overnight delivery of muskrat, bobcat and rattlesnake on the internet.

Beyond meat that tastes good, at least to someone, an interest in exotic meats is rooted in homology beliefs extending back to “The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classics,” which codified the medicinal philosophy more than 2,000 years ago; the idea that eating exotics confers wealth and status on the buyer; and the belief that certain wild animal parts have therapeutic effects (pangolin meat relieving rheumatism, for example). Weak legal controls push the sale of even the less exotic meats such as venison and pheasant into an unregulated and unsupervised gray area.

According to the United Nations, gray areas in the wildlife trade, which mix legal and illegal species, as the Wuhan market at the probable start of the coronavirus outbreak did, can be more dangerous than black markets. In black markets, everyone knows it’s illegal. In gray markets, law-abiding consumers can confuse availability for legality.

It’s in that gray area that disease breeds, animal cruelty can thrive and wild animals are smuggled. An open and frank discussion, free from the stigma of eating exotic meats, would go a long way toward the eventual necessity of a regulated system from farm to abattoir, to bring these meats out of the gray market and into the 21st century. Reform and streamlining of the control and management of wet markets, which often mix public and private ownership to chaotic effect, could help. In the absence of unified management, hygiene and regulation can fall through the cracks, leading to illegal wildlife trading.

 

But this is a wildlife regulation problem, not a wet market problem. Not that long ago, chickens in wet markets were sold live, killed on the spot. Avian flu and the subsequent wholesale elimination of live chickens from wet markets is proof that the country has the regulatory power and ability to execute urgent health policy when it needs to. Exotic meat does not need to be regulated out of existence, as a bill passed in China’s legislature on Feb. 24 promised, but needs a more nuanced and comprehensive approach. A blanket ban will only push it underground. Education, regulation, a supervised farm network and explicitly legal channels for consumers are all needed to counter the existing gray market.

China’s wet markets are more vital and in need now than ever, for its eaters, its children and the fraying social fabric of a country grappling with the world’s largest wave of urbanization.

If the trend of supermarkets in the West takes root in China, they will begin selling more processed foods than produce, high in calories, salt and sugar. Wet markets sell ingredients. This is especially important as a second wave of modern supermarkets is now cropping up across China. Alibaba has launched a successful chain of online/offline hybrid supermarkets under the Hema brand, while JD.com has done the same with its 7Fresh brand.

Right now, China’s supermarket industry remains highly fragmented and regional, with no major national brand dominating like those in the U.S. and the United Kingdom. But eventually there will be market consolidation, and with that a further streamlining of China’s food supply: produce optimized for transport ability, not flavor, a higher proportion of high-salt and high-fat prepared food, a diminished range of seasonal and delicate produce and the further loss of food knowledge transmitted where people buy their food.

Christopher St. Cavish is a writer living in Shanghai.

As xyyzy pointed out I never said these were ok. To find an an effective solution to a problem, understanding the situation will give a much higher chance of coming up with a permanent effective solution. As the writer in this article rightly points out, a strict ban would not eliminate the problem, but likely drive it underground, so the risk of another pandemic outbreak doesn't change, and other problems will arise because of the ineffective change.

Also has this writer and xyzzy pointed out, the biggest problem is trafficking in exotic wildlife meat without regulation - and this happens not only in China, but a number of countries throughout the world. Where was the outrage when HIV broke out - likely originating from Africa? But now there is a growing outrage over China.

How about the outrage over the US hedge fund BIll Ackerman who likely contributed to the market crash by giving a live TV interview saying how bad the situation was all the while having  short the markets and making 10,000% on those (2.6 billion USD), and then buying up the stocks on a 30% discount planning on even more profit?

Yes, we are angry, upset, afraid, looking for someone to blame - but will it solve the situation? Of course China is not an innocent benevolent country, but would 4 weeks made that much difference when almost every other country wasted the 1-2 months of time to prepare? It seems that the Asian countries of Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Japan were using that time effectively.

 

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20 minutes ago, rxpharm said:

Yes, we are angry, upset, afraid, looking for someone to blame - but will it solve the situation?

In the long run yes. I think we will beat this one, but unless we want this one back ( Wuhan opening up again now, are you sure they have it under control?)  or another nasty virus 10 times worse in a few years we need to do something radical.  Closing the wet markets is good start. 

With all due respect, I realise we have a different take on this whole thing, but wearing a facemask isn't gonna cut it in the long run, rxpharm.

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2 hours ago, Tomcat said:

I thought these wet markets in china were a delicacy kind of thing for aphrodisiacs and so on...

Will they ever learn? Chinese markets are still selling bats and slaughtering rabbits on blood-soaked floors as Beijing celebrates 'victory' over the coronavirus

  • Cats, dogs and other domesticated and wild animals freely available to buy 
  • One sources says that: 'the markets have gone back to operating in exactly the same way as they did before coronavirus' despite the outbreaks links to bats 
  • Wild animals still for sale as food and traditional medicine in Chinese markets

Terrified dogs and cats crammed into rusty cages. Bats and scorpions offered for sale as traditional medicine. Rabbits and ducks slaughtered and skinned side by side on a stone floor covered with blood, filth, and animal remains. 

Those were the deeply troubling scenes yesterday as China celebrated its 'victory' over the coronavirus by reopening squalid meat markets of the type that started the pandemic three months ago, with no apparent attempt to raise hygiene standards to prevent a future outbreak. 

As the pandemic that began in Wuhan forced countries worldwide to go into lockdown, a Mail on Sunday correspondent yesterday watched as thousands of customers flocked to a sprawling indoor market in Guilin, south-west China. 

Here cages of different species were piled on top of each other. In another meat market in Dongguan, southern China, another correspondent photographed a medicine seller returning to business on Thursday with a billboard advertising bats – thought to be the cause of the initial Wuhan outbreak – along with scorpions and other creatures. 

The shocking scenes came as China finally lifted a weekslong nationwide lockdown and encouraged people to go back to normal daily life to boost the flagging economy. Official statistics indicated there were virtually no new infections. 

The market in Guilin was packed with shoppers yesterday, with fresh dog and cat meat on offer, a traditional 'warming' winter dish. 

'Everyone here believes the outbreak is over and there's nothing to worry about any more. It's just a foreign problem now as far as they are concerned,' said one of the China-based correspondents who captured these images for The Mail on Sunday. 

The correspondent who visited Dongguan said: 'The markets have gone back to operating in exactly the same way as they did before coronavirus.

'The only difference is that security guards try to stop anyone taking pictures which would never have happened before.' 

The first coronavirus cases were traced to a market in Wuhan but the outbreak was kept silent by officials for weeks and whistleblowers were silenced, including 33-yearold Dr Li Wenliang, who later died of coronavirus. 

Now, after a dramatic fall in infection rates within China, the Beijing government is promoting conspiracy theories that the outbreak did not begin in China at all. A discredited story, shared widely on China's Weibo social media platform, claims coronavirus was first detected in Italy in November. 

Meanwhile, Chinese officials have promoted groundless conspiracy theories that the US Army brought the virus to its shores. The only Chinese city still under lockdown yesterday was Wuhan, but yesterday even the restrictions there began to be lifted, with high-speed trains allowed to operate. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8163761/Chinese-markets-selling-bats.html

26533774-8163761-A_traditional_medicine_stall_at_Dongguan_market_in_southern_Chin-a-2_1585443805365.jpg

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The Washington Examiner reports that some of the locals in Wuhan say that 20 times more deaths have happened than have been reported  due to numbers of cremations and so on

Unless they are all immune over there then one expects it will bounce back, if indeed it ever went away...time will tell

 

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20 minutes ago, Tomcat said:

The Washington Examiner reports that some of the locals in Wuhan say that 20 times more deaths have happened than have been reported  due to numbers of cremations and so on

Unless they are all immune over there then one expects it will bounce back, if indeed it ever went away...time will tell

 

You do realize that the Washington Examiner is a political digital tabloid? It is hardly a reliable source of factual news. Its target audience are politically conservatives who gobble up conspiracy theories 

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3 hours ago, rxpharm said:

It seems that the Asian countries of Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Japan were using that time effectively.

Hong Kong got good reviews also. However Japan, while somewhat flattening their curve, has some work to do. I saw TV reports of many people out and about enjoying good weather. There was no evidence of social distancing. Many of the population yet to take it seriously apparently.

 

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2 hours ago, Tomcat said:

The Washington Examiner reports that some of the locals in Wuhan say that 20 times more deaths have happened than have been reported  due to numbers of cremations and so on

Unless they are all immune over there then one expects it will bounce back, if indeed it ever went away...time will tell

 

Washington Examiner is a hoax site. I would not use them as proof.. infact the opposite. That tends to actually weakening our arguments which make perfect sense based on real facts.

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3 hours ago, strocube said:

 

 

Video is outdated already.  IOC and Tokyo 2020 have postponed the games.  The Japanese are not freaking out as the know all video maker suggests.  The Japanese Government was doing everything they could to hold the games as scheduled, due to a 20 Billion Dollar investment. They were the firrst to close schools and cancel sporting events in efforts to stop the spread.  They also were way behind in testing people although the virus hit this area much earlier than other countries they still have tested less than 30,000 people suggesting there are a lot more out there shedding the virus.  It's no coincidence that after the announcement of the games being postponed that they had back to back days of their biggest spikes of confirmed positive tests.

At the end of the video he is outside a Tokyo 2020 merchandise shop suggesting that items will be collectors items.  I guess he doesn't realize that the games are to be held next year and still called the Tokyo 2020 games.  They already have target dates.  They on are on the hook for another 16 Billion.  

 

 

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1 hour ago, Tomcat said:

yah .. just like China is " Communist"...    

The Washington Examiner is a VERY conservative point of view newspaper. Up to your political leanings to determine what that means to you. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Examiner

The Examiner has been described as and is widely regarded as conservative.[5] When Anschutz first started the Examiner in its daily newspaper format, he envisioned creating a competitor to The Washington Post with a conservative editorial line. According to Politico, "When it came to the editorial page, Anschutz's instructions were explicit – he 'wanted nothing but conservative columns and conservative op-ed writers,' said one former employee."[3] The Examiner's writers have included Michael Barone, Tim Cavanaugh, David Freddoso, Tara Palmeri, Bill Sammon, Rudy Takala, and Byron York.

 

 

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