The vegan society online largely agrees that this is a "karma virus" - just one in a long series of viruses caused by meat consumption. Since this one came from exotic animals, the outrage is much higher still. I'm not 100% vegan, but I have to agree. Those wet markets in China are a disgrace to humanity and "we are now paying the price", so to speak.
I really hope humanity can learn a valuable lesson and progress the vegan movement after this crisis is over, but I doubt it. China is already spreading propaganda and wet markets will offer new diseases for decades to come. And there's the melting tundra that just might release some ancient critters.
I'm vegan but I don't necessarily agree that this is a "karma virus".
People catch bird flu by close contact with birds or bird droppings. Exactly what "close contact" means differs from culture to culture.
Some people have caught H5N1 from cleaning or plucking infected birds. In China, there have been reports of infection via inhalation of aerosolized materials in live bird markets. It's also possible that some people were infected after swimming or bathing in water contaminated with the droppings of infected birds. And some infections have occurred in people who handle fighting cocks.
People don't catch the virus from eating fully cooked chicken or eggs.
So, yes, I do realize that by nature of eating meat there are farmers/hunters/ person with job X that are exposed in mass to animals with new viruses that will inevitably make the jump to humans. We would basically need to limit our contact to animals in general.
There have been plenty of instances like, during the Irish potato famine, where the famine was actually curved by giving people chickens so they could live off eating the eggs. There are plenty of countries where people still depend on things like this and they consider those animals part of their family - they'd never think of eating the animals themselves.
For purely farmed animals, they can be vaccinated. Vietnam had a massive vaccination/killing of birds during the first Avian flu outbreak and contained it very quickly. But, the thing is, birds migrate around the world and carry these things with them. With international travel and the amount of exposure in airports, when one person gets it and goes threw a few airports, you see what's happening now.
Wet markets are amping this up and allowing for viruses to spread from bats, to pangolins, to birds, to humans - or however it transpires. So, yeah, they're not good. I haven't done much research on them but they come from a place with billions of people that all need to eat. They're somewhat of a cultural thing so trying to shut them down is like telling Americans to get rid of their guns - for lack of a better reference?
Generally speaking though, I'd agree that if the whole world went vegan it would help curve many problems and not only this one. It wouldn't necessarily completely eradicate things like the viral diseases though.
Topic: Corona Virus. What's going on where you live? (Read 93157 times)