Some Markets are Hazardous to Your Health

I liked to go to "wet markets" in post-war Hawaii as a kid and look at all the live and dead creatures. They were an important part of the culture--and still are in Asia. But their time has passed.

Business Insider (1/31/2020): [bold added]

The coronavirus spreading in China and the SARS outbreak of 2003 have two things in common: Both are from the coronavirus family, and both likely started in wet markets. At such markets, outdoor stalls are squeezed together to form narrow lanes, where locals and visitors shop for cuts of meat and ripe produce. A stall selling hundreds of caged chickens may abut a butcher counter, where meat is chopped as nearby dogs watch hungrily. Some vendors hock skinned hares, while seafood stalls display glistening fish and shrimp.

Guangzhou, 2004: SARS from civet cats in wet market (WSJ)

Wet markets put people and live and dead animals — dogs, chickens, pigs, snakes, civets, and more — in constant close contact. That makes it easy for a virus to jump from animal to human.

On January 22, authorities in Wuhan, China — where the current outbreak started — banned the trade of live animals at wet markets. The specific market where the outbreak might have begun, the Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market, was shuttered on January 1. The coronavirus that emerged there has so far killed at least 213 people and infected more than 9,800.

The Wildlife Conservation Society has called for their abolition:

SCMP: frogs for sale at Wuhan market

It would be hard to design more opportune conditions for new viruses to emerge: Tightly pack together a variety of species from around the world and transport them across borders directly into large wet markets. Ensure that these massively stressed and immunocompromised wild animals are in close proximity to domestic and farmed animals. Then distribute these animals to urban populations for consumption.

The reassortment and exchange of viral components between species at live animal markets is a major source of new viruses. These can be zoonotic—transmitted from animals to humans (e.g., avian flu, SARS, Middle East respiratory syndrome)—and later mutate so that they can transmit between humans, creating the conditions for a rapid global pandemic.