What is a Wet Market?

[Trick]

I've seen a recent video of a pregnant black couple being refused entry to a hospital. Not sure which city it was in.

Here is McDonald's in Guangzhou with written notices for blacks to keep out.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-3vOkKjqq_ ... 3xfhkcp3ub

Never been to Guangzhou, but hear many foreign devils there are Africans or of African descent. Why would the American burger joint want to loose that consumer group ?

[Steve James]

Chinese chauvinism and feelings of superiority (in China) are old news. It's no stupider than people feeling superior to Chinese here. It's just a lesson. People will blame everyone but themselves, if they can, for whatever they think is wrong in their society. It's not an ethnic trait, and has nothing to do with "race," and isn't rational; but it's typically human.

Yeah, a sign saying no Blacks or Africans is shocking, sort of, I don't think they could forget how they felt seeing the "no dogs or Chinese" signs. So, to me, it's not more disturbing than the situations with the Uighurs or other Chinese ethnic minorities that exist without signs.

Afa wet markets, there are plenty in parts of Africa with lots of "exotic" meats. People have been eating wild meats for thousands of years. Nobody knows why certain viruses pass from animal to human or vice versa. But, mammals are genetically very similar. Yeah, open markets with animal parts laying around are unsanitary. Otoh, the "sanitary" slaughterhouse or market is a relatively new thing.

Over-population combined with greater accessibility to exotic meats creates a better opportunity for exotic viruses to cross over, a better incubator for them, and air travel gives them a greater opportunity to propagate. Pollution in industrialized countries yield populations with high numbers of asthma and lung problems, making them particularly vulnerable to certain types of viruses. Put all those conditions in one place, and what happens shouldn't be surprising.

[Trick]

the rumors say the virus came from bats. here in my living area when darkness set in theres plenty of little bats flying around over your head, same up in Dalian...and also in sweden. as a kid one morning i found a bat laying seemingly injured in the playground sandbox, aggressive little bugger, didnt want my help........anyway, couldnt the virus just spread naturally without any wet markets

[Trick]

and speaking bats. i learned from the movie pet detective that bat dropping is a great fertilizer. maybe it was all in the veggies sold at the wet market ?

[Steve James]

anyway, couldnt the virus just spread naturally without any wet market

The question is how the virus crossed over. A conspiracy theory might claim that scientists extracted it from bats and combined it with a virus already present in human beings. Iinm, the wet market as source of the virus isn't because people eat bats --as they have probably done for generations. So, the thought is that the bats gave the virus to pigs or chickens, and that the mutations created in those animals crossed over into humans. But how? There's a tiger in the Bronx zoo with the coronavirus. Did it eat someone, or did someone breathe on it? How did the tiger catch it?

And, it might not be the meat. It could be an insect or organism that lives on an animal, like a louse, or a flea, that jumps from one animal to another and then to a human. A market could give them that opportunity. I dunno.

[Finny]

the rumors say the virus came from bats. here in my living area when darkness set in theres plenty of little bats flying around over your head, same up in Dalian...and also in sweden. as a kid one morning i found a bat laying seemingly injured in the playground sandbox, aggressive little bugger, didnt want my help........anyway, couldnt the virus just spread naturally without any wet markets

Most recent 'popular' viral outbreaks originated with bats. SARS, swine flu etc all originated with bats.

Nobody knows why certain viruses pass from animal to human or vice versa. But, mammals are genetically very similar. Yeah, open markets with animal parts laying around are unsanitary. Otoh, the "sanitary" slaughterhouse or market is a relatively new thing.

Over-population combined with greater accessibility to exotic meats creates a better opportunity for exotic viruses to cross over, a better incubator for them, and air travel gives them a greater opportunity to propagate. Pollution in industrialized countries yield populations with high numbers of asthma and lung problems, making them particularly vulnerable to certain types of viruses. Put all those conditions in one place, and what happens shouldn't be surprising.

It's more the processing of varied wild meats together in unsanitary conditions. We DO know how these viruses pass from animal to human. Most originate with bats before passing to other animals which are then consumed, or pass to animals which are. SARS went from bat - civet - human.. MERS went bat - camel - human. COVID has gone bat - pangolin - human. The wet markets combine these animals in close proximity, with minimal sanitation. As you said Steve, a perfect recipe.

But it really IS the wet markets providing these things, ultimately.

[Peacedog]

The primary issue with the wet markets is the lack of enforced agricultural inspection and sanitation. It is a third world problem that has become a problem for developed countries and a big one in a day and age where movement of people globally is so easy.

One of the reasons why you generally aren't allowed to sell wildlife for food in developed countries is that is impossible to properly inspect these animals as food sources. Exceptions exist, but large unhygienic animal slaughtering facilities like you see in China do not exist either, so the risk of a virus crossing over is much lower.

The bottom line is that problems like SARS/MERS/whatever are going to continue to happen until China is hammered into complying with modern health and hygiene standards. It is made worse by China having a socialist government that prevents real time reporting on the issue that would allow other countries to get ahead of these problems when they happen.

Now whether CV-19 came out of a wet market or from a biowarfare lab accident is a whole other issue. For the sake of everyone I sincerely hope this came out the wet markets and not a biowarfare facility.

But ultimately, if China wants to participate in the global economy it needs to get its act together regarding health and hygiene. To date, China has been either unwilling, or unable, to do this on its own.

As a result, it will be forced into getting its act together via large scale divestment in its economy on the part of wealthier nations and severe restrictions on the movement of its population outside the Middle Kingdom. How this transpires over the next year, or so, will be interesting. It may even cause the collapse of the Politburo, which is why the current regime is running scared.

Keep in mind, the goons running China just murdered a good 30k US citizens and probably a couple of hundred thousand, if not more ultimately, in the rest of the developed world. Anyone who thinks this is going to pass without serious payback has lost their damned mind.

If this came form a wet market, the end result will be international exclusion and shunning. Economically devastating, but otherwise non-kinetic.

If it came out of a lab, and the Chinese government knew this and covered it up, expect some people to start getting killed. Targeted killings are very effective in moderating the behavior of socialist governments as this is their primary method of maintaining control internally. Also, with enough external pressure these same groups will start killing members internally as well both due to paranoia and in attempt to get the external factors off their back.

[GrahamB]

"socialist governments"?

You Americans are hilarious.

[Steve James]

I don't think the PRC promotes wet markets. That's a cultural thing. They can be sanitized, though; and the gov't can require tighter sanitary standards in them. The PRC is uniquely positioned to be able to do that.

Afa lost lives, 100K have died in other countries, mostly developed countries at that. It's hard to count the true numbers at all yet, anywhere. And, then there are countries where the government doesn't have the ability to test or count the population, or where the government doesn't want to count or acknowledge the number of patients, or where they want to deny there are patients. Like North Korea, for ex., they don't have any cases. Reminds me of a guy I used to work for. When we asked why he didn't offer sick pay, he said "I don't have sick pay because I don't have sick employees."

[Peacedog]

It isn't that the PRC encourages them, it is that they lack the will/resources to deal with them.

If the source of the problem was in fact the wet markets, some very simple agricultural inspection enforcement could have prevented the whole thing.

But that's the thing about socialist governments. They spend so much of their available bandwidth and financial resources suppressing their own populations that it leaves them very little excess capacity to deal with things like wet markets.

The PRC would rather use those resources on forced late term abortions, tracking kids down on Tic Tok and other more oppressive behaviors as keeping their host population in a non-stop state of terror is a far higher priority than actually governing.

And I only mention developed countries for two reasons:

(1) Third world countries lack the institutional integrity to come up with meaningful numbers regarding their own CV-19 issues. For example, based off of conversations with people on the ground, we know the situation in Ecuador is bad. How bad? Who knows. Their joker government can't even run their own currency. Forget counting the number of ill accurately. If CV-19 hits the Congo and is bad, how would the rest of the world even know?

(2) Only developed countries have the resources necessary to hold the Chinese accountable. And I say this as it is not exclusively a US problem to solve, although it will probably lead the way. For example, as anyone who has ever dealt with them will tell you, the French take the death of their citizens at the hands of foreign actors very seriously. They are also not shy about shooting those same people in the back of the head and throwing them down a stairwell. Often decades after the fact. While the US led economic actions will be bad, I suspect the PRC is actually much more afraid of what the Europeans are going to do to Chinese officials, especially abroad, in the event CV-19 came out of a lab.

My guess is that the government in Beijing is pretty much shitting themselves right now both between the coming economic penalties for what happened and for the forthcoming response from developed countries.

[windwalker]

If it came out of a lab, and the Chinese government knew this and covered it up, expect some people to start getting killed.

Might want to read about the 8 medical Personnel who initially reported their findings.
Either dead from the virus or now MIA

China has had a history of viruses escaping from labs in the past.
Apparently there were researchers studying virus from bats in the bio facility close to the wet market.

There are questions as to whether the virus escaped from the lab to the wet market, not having originated from it.

They did take swift and decisive action in a time when there was mass movement of people during their holiday season.

While at the same time apparently not admitting to the human to human transmission.
Taiwan, understanding a possible situation developing sent their researchers over to investigate it and reacted accordingly also warning the. WHO and was ignored.

They did not shut down their economy nor did Korea.

It is kind of strange, in some scientific journals they point out it's highly unlikely it escaped from a lab, at the same time pointing to viruses that escaped from China’s labs in the past.

Something that may never be known but cannot be ruled out .

[Michael]

"socialist governments"?

You Americans are hilarious.

That's basically how they describe themselves now on paper and they teach their own that their system is "socialism with Chinese characteristics", and was probably more accurate during the Mao years when millions were starving to death under strict central planning.

I guess they're now also teaching their high school and college students Xi Jin Ping thought; I haven't had those students since that became the new thing.

After Deng Xiao Peng and the change from strict central planning to maintaining central authority and control, which is accomplished partly by requiring companies, schools, and all entities of any size to have a CPC party member on their board of directors or equivalent, thereby allowing them to act according to market forces while still obeying state mandates and following central prescriptions, is IMO much closer to fascism.

[Peacedog]

I'd agree with that with the observation that fascism is socialism.

Fascism per se is ethnocentric nationalist socialism versus the Soviet model of socialism which was, nominally, a pan-national form of socialism. Of course, the Soviets were racist as hell, especially with regards to killing off their ethnic minority groups via starvation/ethnic partitioning/forced deportations/etc. So, in that regard, socialist regimes are inherently racist as a functional, if not doctrinal/theological, matter.

[Giles]

Before the terminology gets too tangled here, and so we can return a.s.a.p. to the thread theme:

“Socialism” isn’t really a useful term in this context when talking about contemporary politics. It originated with Marx and Engels, or more correctly was ‘funneled’ by them on the basis of earlier revolutionary movements with a concern for social issues. Put very basically, since the 1920s it has broadly diverged into communism and social democracy. Regarding these two, I don’t think anyone here is going to claim “they’re both the same”... (?). What can still be confusing, especially for people from some parts of the world, is that the terms “socialism” and “socialist” are now, or were until quite recently, used to refer to things so truly disparate as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and, in contrast, the British Labour Party or the (West) German Social Democratic Party to give a couple of the many Western European examples. Both of which have frequently produced a few respectable Prime Ministers / Chancellors in recent generations. And who didn’t have any of their political opponents shot in the back of the head and flung into shallow graves, strangely enough.

Here in (Western) Europe, “socialist” is now usually (but not always, it’s true) a shorthand term for various shades of social democracy. When we’re talking about the USSR and its former satellite states, the PRC and similar we would normally say “communist”. Although in the former GDR (East Germany), they did indeed refer to their own state and politics as “socialist”. But that's now at least 30 years in the past. At the same time, people in West Germany mostly referred to the politics of East Germany as “communist”, and the Social Democrats in West Germany did too.

So to sum up, you’ll still find “socialist” used in various ways by citizens and by very different kinds of politicians, parties and states. Also by various groups or parties who in some way could be called "socialist", while some of these would totally reject each other’s ideologies and political practice. I think it would be constructive not to use it as blanket term at RSF, at least.

@ Peacedog. “National Socialism” and fascism were of course one and the same. And there was little practical difference between Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia, apart from living standards before the war of course. “Communist fascism” is not necessarily an oxymoron, it’s true! But otherwise, please refer to above.

[Trick]

The primary issue with the wet markets is the lack of enforced agricultural inspection and sanitation. It is a third world problem that has become a problem for developed countries and a big one in a day and age where movement of people globally is so easy.

One of the reasons why you generally aren't allowed to sell wildlife for food in developed countries is that is impossible to properly inspect these animals as food sources. Exceptions exist, but large unhygienic animal slaughtering facilities like you see in China do not exist either, so the risk of a virus crossing over is much lower.

The bottom line is that problems like SARS/MERS/whatever are going to continue to happen until China is hammered into complying with modern health and hygiene standards. It is made worse by China having a socialist government that prevents real time reporting on the issue that would allow other countries to get ahead of these problems when they happen.

Now whether CV-19 came out of a wet market or from a biowarfare lab accident is a whole other issue. For the sake of everyone I sincerely hope this came out the wet markets and not a biowarfare facility.

But ultimately, if China wants to participate in the global economy it needs to get its act together regarding health and hygiene. To date, China has been either unwilling, or unable, to do this on its own.

As a result, it will be forced into getting its act together via large scale divestment in its economy on the part of wealthier nations and severe restrictions on the movement of its population outside the Middle Kingdom. How this transpires over the next year, or so, will be interesting. It may even cause the collapse of the Politburo, which is why the current regime is running scared.

Keep in mind, the goons running China just murdered a good 30k US citizens and probably a couple of hundred thousand, if not more ultimately, in the rest of the developed world. Anyone who thinks this is going to pass without serious payback has lost their damned mind.

If this came form a wet market, the end result will be international exclusion and shunning. Economically devastating, but otherwise non-kinetic.

If it came out of a lab, and the Chinese government knew this and covered it up, expect some people to start getting killed. Targeted killings are very effective in moderating the behavior of socialist governments as this is their primary method of maintaining control internally. Also, with enough external pressure these same groups will start killing members internally as well both due to paranoia and in attempt to get the external factors off their back.

Nah, it’s enough they wind back a couple of decades and begin to provide super cheap labor again for western big corporations. Then wet markets will be rediscovered as one of the very exotic things China has to offer for the new tourist boom, even visiting presidents and prime ministers will happily tour such facilities to show how down to earth they are.

The so called bio warfare lab is kind of an joint venture with France......(who told you it is a bio warfare lab ?)