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Culture

The Two Dark Sides of COVID-19

Mar 2, 2020 Peter Singer and Paola Cavalieri

Historically, tragedies such as the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic have sometimes led to important changes. The probable source of the new coronavirus – so-called wet markets, at which live animals are sold and slaughtered before customers' eyes – should be banned not only in China, but worldwide.

PRINCETON – The apocalyptic images of the locked-down Chinese city of Wuhan have reached us all. The world is holding its breath over the spread of the new coronavirus, COVID-19, and governments are taking or preparing drastic measures that will necessarily sacrifice individual rights and freedoms for the general good.

Some focus their anger on China’s initial lack of transparency about the outbreak. The philosopher Slavoj Žižek has spoken of “the racist paranoia” at work in the obsession with COVID-19 when there are many worse infectious diseases from which thousands die every day. Those prone to conspiracy theories believe that the virus is a biological weapon aimed at China’s economy. Few mention, let alone confront, the underlying cause of the epidemic.

Both the 2003 SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) epidemic and the current one can be traced to China’s “wet markets” – open-air markets where animals are bought live and then slaughtered on the spot for the customers. Until late December 2019, everyone affected by the virus had some link to Wuhan’s Huanan Market.

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Peter Singer

Writing for PS since 2001
217 Commentaries

Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, is Founder of the nonprofit organization The Life You Can Save. His books include Animal Liberation, Practical Ethics, The Ethics of What We Eat (with Jim Mason), Rethinking Life and Death, The Point of View of the Universe, co-authored with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek, The Most Good You Can Do, Famine, Affluence, and Morality, One World Now, Ethics in the Real World, Why Vegan?, and Utilitarianism: A Very Short Introduction, also with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek. In April 2021, W.W. Norton published his new edition of Apuleius’s The Golden Ass. In 2013, he was named the world's third "most influential contemporary thinker" by the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute.

Paola Cavalieri

Writing for PS since 2020
1 Commentary

Paola Cavalieri, an independent researcher based in Italy, is the author, most recently, of Philosophy and the Politics of Animal Liberation.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 34 Comments on this article

Catherine SHALEN Mar 25, 2020

A global ban on bioterrorist labs such as the Wuhan one would also be effective! In spite of all statements that point to the wet markets, I cannot stop thinking that the mutant viruses were developed in the Wuhan lab, and escaped from there. A more charitable conclusion is that Wuhan lab scientists were just studying mutant virus, that they did not develop it. I heard from someone with insider info, that coronavirus gene had been traced to the lab.8
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Jin Qian Mar 24, 2020

Not trying to justify the killing of sentient beings, but please take a look at this article and understand what wet markets mean to Chinese https://www.latimes.com/food/story/2020-03-11/coronavirus-china-wet-markets It's necessary to know that wet markets in China's major cities do not sell wild animals and are an important source for more diverse vegetable/fruit options in comparison with supermarkets.
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Gonçalo Megre Mar 23, 2020

Obviously , there should be tighter controls on wet markets for public health safety reasons. How quick we are judging othes, while the USA his the biggest per capita polluter in the world and a danger to the rest of the world. While fast food is a public health issue in America. While salaries represent 30 to 45% of university costs in the states an no one talks about cutting the many times obscene professors salaries.
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P. Kamath Mar 20, 2020

The authors forgot to mention that some of the handsome wild (Or domesticated animals like animals like Golden retriever dogs ) are slaughtered by poachers using assault rifles like AK47s so that their private parts could be sold to Chinese customers ex: tigers from India and Asian countries, rhinos for their tusks, elephants etc. One of my friends was horrified when she was given menu in a high end restaurant , that would serve dish made of newly killed monkey brain. Imagine that!

This practise is rooted in culture and otter ignorance of govt. officials, I doubt it will disappear in my great great, great gand-childrens’ time,
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Piroska Nagy Mohacsi Mar 19, 2020

Excellent article, a real eye opener and something that is being overlooked in the current crisis management. Let’s start #BanWetMarkets
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Eric Mills Mar 10, 2020

It ain't just China, folks. Very similar live animal food ("wet") markets exist throughout California (Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Sacramento, et al.) and in New York City--a disaster waiting to happen. The chickens--as they say--have again come home to roost.

A small group of us have been striving unsuccessfully for 25+ years to get the CA Dept. of Fish & Wildlife (DFW) to cease issuing import permits for frogs and turtles for human consumption. California annually imports some TWO MILLION non-native American bullfrogs for food. Most are commercially-raised in China and Taiwan. Plus an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 freshwater turtles (mostly softshells and red-eared sliders), all taken from the wild in states East of the Rockies, depleting local populations.

Most of these pathetic creatures are kept in horrendous conditions, stacked four-and-five deep, without food or water, and often butchered while fully conscious. NOT ACCEPTABLE!

More than 30 necropsies on the CA market frogs and turtles have documented that ALL are diseased and/or parasitized, though it is ILLEGAL to sell such products--enforcement of the laws are nil. Worse, many are bought en masse, by "do-gooders" and certain Buddhist religious sects for "animal liberation" ceremonies and released into local waters, where they prey upon and displace the native species, while spreading all sorts of diseases.

Worse, the majority of the bullfrogs (62% in one study) carry the dreaded chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, or Bd), responsible for the EXTINCTIONS of 200+ amphibian species worldwide in recent years.

These horrendously cruel and dangerously unhealthful abattoirs should be permanently closed-down worldwide. Legislation is in order, both state and federal. Let your representatives hear from you!

x
Eric Mills, coordinator
ACTION FOR ANIMALS
Oakland
email - afa@mcn.org
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Madurai Padmanabhan Mar 9, 2020

Human experience with prohibition, drug control laws, prostitution and trafficking provide examples of possible unintended outcomes of this perhaps ethical choice.
Maybe other steps to organize, educate and regulate quality of animal sources for human consumption suited to locally successful enforcement ought to be attempted before sweeping ethically correct global practices are recommended.
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Rene Macon Mar 8, 2020

"...wet markets, at which live animals are sold and slaughtered before customers' eyes – should be banned not only in China, but worldwide."

I think that not only "wet markets" should be banned but also international private trade with exotic animals and plants. The satisfaction these type of species provide their new owners, is very likely to be much smaller that the damage they cause, as can be observed by the ecological disaster the chytrid fungus has created to amphibians in Latin America and currently to amphibians in Europe. The chytrid fungus was brought to Latin America by trade with African clawed frogs and to Europe by trade with Asian red-bellied newts.

We should also consider a ban of house cats, whose enormous damage to local bird and reptile population is well documented by scientific studies.
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j. von Hettlingen Mar 2, 2020

Reading this commentary by Peter Singer and Paola Cavalieri, one gains the impression that the two “dark” sides of COVID-19 seem to be China’s inability to learn a lesson from SARS that raged in 2003, and the flagrant animal rights violations at its wet markets, where animals are bought live and freshly slaughtered in front of the customers. Apart from cats and dogs whining in cramped cages, waiting to be slaughtered, skinned and served for dinner, wildlife, exotic animals and plants are also sold.
The authors call for the ban on wet markets across the globe. The recent Coronavirus outbreak has been linked to a wet market in Wuhan, eastern China. Vendors accommodate customers who have a huge appetite for “warm” meat instead of frozen meat from slaughterhouses. Many Chinese use traditional medicine – the wilder the animal or plant, the better the effects. They believe stewed turtle cures cancer, crocodile meat relieves asthma, pangolin scales regulate menstruation and scorpion venom helps stroke victims etc.
Like other respiratory illnesses, COVID-19 was initially transmitted from animal to human. After undergoing rapid mutation it has since been passed from human to human. Wet markets create ideal conditions for the spillover of pathogens from one species to another, including to people. Just imagie the scene – “live mammals, poultry, fish, and reptiles, crammed together and sharing their breath, their blood, and their excrement.” Experts say wildlife sold for human consumption raises risk of new epidemics.
Jason Beaubien a journalist recently reported: “Live fish in open tubs splash water all over the floor. The countertops of the stalls are red with blood as fish are gutted and filleted right in front of the customers' eyes. Live turtles and crustaceans climb over each other in boxes. Melting ice adds to the slush on the floor. There’s lots of water, blood, fish scales, and chicken guts.”
But many Chinese, especially those from rural areas, prefer going to wet markets, where they socialise, to shopping at supermarkets. It is amazing what is on offer – live wolf pups, golden cicadas, scorpions, bamboo rats, squirrels, foxes, civets, hedgehogs or porcupines, salamanders, snakes, insects, turtles and crocodiles. Sometimes one finds assorted body parts – tail, belly, tongue and intestines – of some animals, camels, koalas etc.
Stalls teem with wildlife animals, some of which are endangered species, and all of which are destined to end their lives in restaurants, pharmacies or pet cages. The authors point out that “for the animals, wet markets are hell on earth. Thousands of sentient, palpitating beings endure hours of suffering and anguish before being brutally butchered.”
With rising incomes more consumers can afford to indulge in foods that were once considered delicacies for the very rich. A popular saying has it that people in China will eat anything with four legs except a chair, anything that flies except a plane and anything in the water except a boat.
Following the ban, demand dropped briefly after the 2003 SARS crisis, which was blamed on pathogens spread by civet cats and other wild animals. China “prohibited the breeding, transport, and sale of civets and other wild animals, but the ban was lifted six months later.”
Wet markets should be “banned not only in China, but all over the world,” because it enables new viren and diseases emerge. Let us hope that the severity of COVID-19 will make an impact on the leadership in Beijing – to take animal rights and nature conservation more seriously, while reducing the risk of a ‘made in China’ disease harming people worldwide.” The problem is that China will not shut down such markets permanently.
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Kudakwashe Kanhutu Mar 2, 2020

This article lost all its traction right there, when it became a shrill animal activist manifesto. A lot of people lose their initially attentive audience, when they try to smuggle in their personal biases, into what should be clean cut scientific arguments.
- Ondine Angarola Mar 16, 2020
  
  I find it rather disturbing that you chose to focus on one or two lines in this entire article that talks about the "moral consideration" that animals deserve. Equating these to "shrill" animal rights activism shows a rather unsettling lack of compassion or empathy for the living beings that are tortured, boiled alive, beaten before ultimate death in these bloody hell holes. I would rather question your own moral compass rather than this thoughtful article that clearly exposes the threat that these markets pose to ALL living beings. Peace out.
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- Peter Singer Mar 2, 2020
  
  We are not trying to "smuggle" anything in -- it's obvious from our title that we are saying that there is a second "dark side" to COVID-19, and the text makes it clear that we think that animals ought to receive moral consideration. We don't know what you mean by "clean cut scientific arguments," but all policy recommendations must start from ethical premises.
  - Charles Driver Mar 8, 2020
    
    Definitely, but you're mixing ethical premises that are, to at least some people, distinct -- one regarding the wellbeing of humans, the other regarding that of animals. Getting your foot in the door by leveraging current events and a widely accepted premise, only to then spring a less popular premise on people, might lead one to wonder to what extent the arguments genuinely concern the first premise / current events...
    - kim southwood Mar 9, 2020
      
      Humans do or don't make ethical choices based on their own observations. To encourage an ethical choice based on observations of the role of human/animal interaction in triggering the COVID-19 outbreak is useful. Those who disapprove of this article's ethical consideration might well label it as a "shrill animal activist manifesto" or as advancing "a less popular premise". For many it supports a deeply help ethical choice to advance pleasure rather than pain. The authors achieve this with a spotlight on cold, stark reality.
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  - Tilly Vacher Mar 6, 2020
    
    Very well said Peter Singer. If my father, Jon Wynne-Tyson, were able he would say so too.
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