Should wet markets be banned?
Scientists are discovering two to four new viruses are created every year as a result of human infringement on the natural world, and any one of those could turn into a pandemic
according to Thomas Lovejoy, a senior fellow at the United Nations Foundation and professor of environment science at George Mason University, he said:
“This pandemic is the consequence of our persistent and excessive intrusion in nature and the vast illegal wildlife trade, and in particular, the wildlife markets, the wet markets, of south Asia and bush meat markets of Africa… It’s pretty obvious, it was just a matter of time before something like this was going to happen,”
Dr Lovejoy is correct but it’s important you know everything he is correct about - he doesn’t think there should be a ban.
& he’s right let me explain:
A complete ban on wet markets would be counter productive from the point of view of reducing pandemic risk as they will be replaced by a black market which due to the clandestine nature will just be harder to regulate.
But it’s also important to remember that these markets feed and provide livlihoods for millions of people.
Don’t judge them, we do stuff that is terrible for us and puts others at risk too, we pollute the planet knowing it’s them, not us, that will suffer the brunt of climate change.
This is nuanced issue and unless you inform yourself you shouldn’t be in the discussion of banning or regulating wet markets.