> we will continue to see pandemics until unsanitary practices like wet markets with exotic animal products are outlawed
I'm really no expert and don't know what to think, but Wikipedia asserts that as of April 2020 investigations are still trying to determine whether the Huanan market was really the source of COVID19. Even if it was, can we even conclude getting rid of these markets would solve pandemics as a general problem?
So at this point we can't really say the "fix" is to remove these markets, can we?
Epidemics are a statistical game, not a black-and-white one.
We aren't realistically out to completely eliminate high-mortality pandemics, but reduce the changes. E.g., perhaps we can make the hundred year event a thousand year event, and the population mortality 1-2% rather than 10-20%.
The question is not whether the Wuhan wet market was definitively the origin of SARS-Cov-2/Covid-19 in humans, but whether it, and similar markets significantly increase the chances of a similar event in the future.
> So at this point we can't really say the "fix" is to remove these markets, can we?
Yes, I think we can. Given what we know of how viruses evolve, mutate and the mechanisms by which they move from various animals to humans, we want to minimize the points where people come into contact with large amounts and variety of raw animal matter in highly unsanitary conditions. Wet markets are probably the lowest hanging fruit in that category.
I'm unconvinced that minimizing contact with raw animal meat markets -- in what you call "the lowest hanging fruit" -- would "fix" the problem with these kinds of pandemics. Not until we know they are the major factor in spreading the infection. Maybe it would help, or not, but "fix"?
Note I'm not disagreeing better sanitary conditions are desirable. I'm disagreeing -- or rather, casting doubt because I'm unconvinced -- that [quote] "we will continue to see pandemics until unsanitary practices like wet markets with exotic animal products are outlawed".
If there is a firm conclusion that this was indeed the major factor, sure. My comment was that, according to articles linked to from Wikipedia, the jury still seems to be out on this.
It is known it comes from certain animals, like bats.
So, how can the virus jump from a bat to a human, either directly or indirectly?
Sure, you can randomly run into a bat anywhere in the world. I know a person that found a bat in her balcony some weeks ago.
But the probability that the virus jumps across species is low. You have to increase the odds, and a good way of doing that is creating a wet market full of them.
And it has been known for a long time that those markets were a disaster waiting to happen.
Maybe it happened like that, maybe it didn't. The Wikipedia page on the (possibly) zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2 mentions lots of questions and uncertainties, including whether the Huanan wet market was the source at all (because of the raw meat) or simply a place where infected people spread it:
I'm not going to quote every paragraph casting doubt, but take a look at this (from Wikipedia):
> The first known infections from the SARS-CoV-2 strain were discovered in Wuhan, China.[12] The original source of viral transmission to humans remains unclear, as does whether the strain became pathogenic before or after the spillover event.[18][57][15] Because many of the first individuals found to be infected by the virus were workers at the Huanan Seafood Market,[58][59] it has been suggested that the strain might have originated from the market.[15][60] However, other research indicates that visitors may have introduced the virus to the market, which then facilitated rapid expansion of the infections.
Note that "facilitating rapid expansion" may simply mean that because it was a place with a lot of people grouped together, the infection could have spread more easily -- the reason we need social distancing now -- but it doesn't automatically mean it has to do with raw meat of exotic animals.
Now, it can be the problem is raw meat after all! But it seems to me research is still ongoing about whether this was the real culprit. That's all I'm saying.
> Serological evidence for SARS CoV in human beings working in these markets, taken together with the earliest cases of SARS in restaurant workers, supports the contention of a potential zoonotic origin for SARS. WHERE NEXT? Will SARS reappear?
I'm not saying we should discount this, and in fact it's a reasonable hypothesis.
But the fact remains it's still under investigation; we do not (yet) know where and how it originated for certain, or whether the origin was an exotic meat wet market.
Even that bats were involved is not certain.
If we do not know this, we cannot know whether closing exotic meat wet markets is a major thing we can do to stop these pandemics.
Ah! The blame game. I'm uninterested in the obsession with blaming the CCP for everything. This and similar pandemics are mankind's problem. China and the ruling party want to solve it too, regardless of how they initially (mis)handled the situation.
We may or may not find patient zero and/or the root cause of the pandemic, but blaming the CCP is pointless.
It's not like other huge parts of the world don't have raw meat wet markets with unsanitary conditions, either. And that's if they were the cause for the pandemic to begin with.
I'm really no expert and don't know what to think, but Wikipedia asserts that as of April 2020 investigations are still trying to determine whether the Huanan market was really the source of COVID19. Even if it was, can we even conclude getting rid of these markets would solve pandemics as a general problem?
So at this point we can't really say the "fix" is to remove these markets, can we?