Chinese officials identified Huanan market as a pandemic risk years before COVID emerged

[canetoad]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Omaha Steve (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: The Age

London: Health experts in Wuhan knew the wet market at the centre of the coronavirus outbreak was a pandemic risk at least five years before COVID-19 emerged, a Sydney scientist has revealed.

In 2014 Dr Eddie Holmes, an evolutionary biologist and virologist, was taken to the Huanan seafood market by members of the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control, who used it as an example of the type of place where a virus could “spillover” from animals to humans. Holmes, a British scientist who now works at the University of Sydney, said the visit was part of a wider project to hunt for new pathogens with pandemic potential in China.

“The Wuhan CDC took us there, and here’s the key bit, because the discussion was: ‘where could a disease emerge?’ Well, here’s the place – that’s why I went,” Holmes said.

“I’ve been to a few of these markets, but this was a big one – it felt like a disease incubator, exactly the sort of place you would expect a disease to emerge”.

Read more: https://www.theage.com.au/world/asia/chinese-officials-identified-huanan-market-as-a-pandemic-risk-years-before-covid-emerged-20210419-p57kan.html

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. The book Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic by David Quammen

is entirely about how disease move from animals to humans. It came out in 2012.

I have a copy of that book and read about half of it some years ago. I have pulled it off the shelf. Maybe I will finish it.

[Irish_Dem]

2. It should be required reading for all of us.

I think the pandemic is going to be with us for awhile.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

4. I have been fascinated by diseases and epidemiology my whole life

and have read LOTS of the books out there on the topic. More people should be reading such things.

[Irish_Dem]

5. I think we have all had a crash mini course on these topics, plus virology.

But you are ahead of most of us.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. The crash course only exists for those who have been paying attention.

Last edited Mon Apr 19, 2021, 11:40 AM - Edit history (1)

Which does tend to be a lot of those here on DU.

Another as yet unread book I found while searching for my copy of Spillover is Zoobiquity: The Astonishing Connection Between Human and Animal Health by Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and Kathryn Bowers. It also has a copyright date of 2012. I've taken it off the shelf and perhaps will read it soon.

So many books, so little time. Plus, I am truly a voracious reader. Two-thirds to three-quarters of what I read is non fiction, and there's hardly a topic I'm not interested in. Sigh.

[raccoon]

12. Sounds like my reading habits, especially lately. I try to read

Some light fiction or something funny, to get away from the heavy stuff all the time.

[Irish_Dem]

14. Yes the ignorant keep their head in the sand. Not a good way to deal with an emergency.

It is good to be so widely read. I used to be like that when I was younger, now I tend to stick to the same old genres.
Or I just watch Netflix.

Keep up the good work! And thanks for the citations.

[Irish_Dem]

3. I hope that someday we can get the truth out of China.

It might be helpful for us to understand exactly what happened so we can prevent it from happening again.
If that is possible.

[Grokenstein]

6. A Chinese market with a Texas attitude towards safety.

[FailureToCommunicate]

7. No one who's seen the movie "Contagion" would be surprised at that prediction.

[monkeyman1]

8. china is not the only wet market in the wolrld !

[orleans]

10. apparently there is a difference between "wet markets"

this yr old article on cnn says wet markets can be a place where fresh vegetables are sold and hosed down and the floor is wet
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/14/asia/china-wet-market-coronavirus-intl-hnk/index.html


so the ones i think of (where animals are slaughtered) i think the term blood market would be more appropriate

[NullTuples]

11. Perhaps that's why we had people embedded in China's CDC

...for advanced notice of new emerging pandemics by the Obama Administration after H1N1.

Of course, the last such person was recalled and the program cancelled in mid-2019 by the GOP & Trump administration.

[twodogsbarking]

13. You nailed it.

We could have been working with China for a solution but .......

[IronLionZion]

15. Has Biden reinstated that?

He probably should do it soon.

[Omaha Steve]

16. After a review by forum hosts....LOCKING

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