Despite Provoking Coronavirus Pandemic, China Reopens Wet Markets To Sell Bats And Wild Animals

Wet markets in China selling meat of bats, scorpions, cats and dogs have begun reopening in the country, just months after the meat sold in such markets is believed to have triggered the global coronavirus pandemic.

These wet markets which are notorious for selling bushmeat, are reported to have caused the current Covid-19 pandemic when a meat eating human contacted the SARS-CoV-2 virus from animals sold at such markets like bats or pangolins.

As per a Daily Mail report, this reopening of wet markets is the country’s way of “celebrating its victory” on coronavirus. It adds that despite reopening the controversial markets no efforts have been made to increase the hygiene standards to prevent a similar outbreak in the future.

Present in the market were caged dogs, cats, rabbits and ducks crammed together to be sold as meat. Also being sold were wild animals like bats, scorpions and lizards - used as traditional medicines in China.

The report claims that many in China now believe that the pandemic is now over domestically and are going back to patronising the wet markets.

“The markets have gone back to operating in exactly the same way as they did before coronavirus”, the report quotes its correspondent as saying. The only difference is that security guards now prevented photography of the marketplace.