The coronavirus originated in Wuhan, China, and there is a good chance that the Chinese government knew about it for a long time before the current pandemic happened.
The Chinese government has allowed the existence of live animal markets for a long time, offering live bats, raccoons, civets, and other species that are teeming with viruses that can threaten humans.
Scientific studies have concluded that the 2002 SARS epidemic likely started from a coronavirus in bats that made their way to humans in Guangdong. Today, bats are believed to be the source of the current coronavirus, COVID-19, once again originating from China.
Beijing has been urged to shut down these markets for years for this very risk that has now become a reality.
Scientists believe that the virus spread from one of these animal markets in Wuhan. Reports say that the Chinese government responded to the virus by banning the selling, buying, eating of wildlife. Obviously, it wasn’t enough.
The Global Wildlife Conservation tweeted out on Saturday: “Setting the record straight about the #COVID19 #coronavirus is critical to ensure that we permanently close live animal markets across the world. Only in this way can we #stopthespread of similar future pathogens.”
Chris Walzer, the executive director of health at the organization, further explained: “It is most likely that the evolutionary or ancestral host was a bat… What we don’t know is how the virus got into humans and which possible intermediary host it passed through.”
The belief is that once these animals have been captured, they are then put into a small space with many other species, spreading the virus to each other, then they are slaughtered. This allows the blood and organ to be exposed to humans and causing the virus to transfer.
The issue issue is that China is trying to cover up the origins of the virus, and is lying about what happened. In fact, they have come up with a bizarre conspiracy theory that says the U.S. Army planted the virus in Wuhan.
Furthermore, once the outbreak began, the country failed to close off ports or limit the travel of its population, causing the disease to spread across the world.
This creaties another layer of difficulty during this entire situation: believing what the Chinese government is saying. As more and more numbers are reported about China’s cases, the numbers have been dwindling significantly, which is, at first glance, a very good thing. But when the country has proven to lie about things so easily to the point of this happening, it can cause some second-guessing about what we should believe.
The important thing to remember is that this is not cause for xenophobia. The shortcomings of a government do not reflect the morals or behaviors of the people they govern over. We cannot let this cause treatment of our Asian population to decline. We have to continue to stand together in order to get through this.
When all is said and done, and the virus has been contained or treated or what have you, perhaps there will be consequences that the Chinese government will have to answer to. But that does not mean we have to rid ourselves of our own humanity.
Continue to love one another for the sake of being human, continue to encourage one another through this ordeal, and the world can be a better place for it.
