China Reopens Wet Markets with World Health Organization’s Blessing
China’s notorious “wet markets,” the open-air wildlife slaughterhouses that were supposedly the mechanism for the Wuhan coronavirus jumping from animals to humans, are back in business with the approval of the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO seal of approval stunned government officials and health experts around the globe. Chinese state media outlets were delighted to announce the ostensibly “sanitized” wet markets are open again in provinces across China – including Wuhan, epicenter of the global pandemic that killed thousands of people and inflicted trillions of dollars in economic damage. According to the state-run Global Times, some of the wet markets never closed at all:
After the COVID-19 outbreak in late January, many of the city’s farmers’ and wet markets were ordered to close and to rectify their sanitary hazards. Zhang Zheyan, manager of a big market in Wuchang district, Wuhan told the Global Times that his market was ordered to lockdown in January, and he is waiting for the government’s order to reopen. But the market’s vendors and neighboring residents cannot wait anymore, as many vendors are in need of income while the demand for fresh food has increased. Zhang opened a small patch of field in front of its market’s closed door, enabling vendors to display their products, such as poultry meat and fresh vegetables. Zhang said this is the market’s way of “self- redemption.” The old buzzing Wuyizha market in Wuchang district is nearly empty now, with only a few inspectors disinfecting the market floor and closed doors of shops. Wang, manager of Wuyizha market, said that more than 500 market vendors, who are now left jobless without income, are waiting eagerly for the government’s order to reopen again. Hong Zhihua, a deputy head of Hubei’s Patriotic Health Movement Committee, said at a conference on Friday that the Wuhan city government plans to give out 200 million yuan ($29.81 million) to upgrade 425 farmers market in the city, and urged not to sell wild animals, live poultry, or have pit latrines, and garbage in public after the market reopens.
China, the country that employs a million censors to police every single social media post for unauthorized images of Winnie the Pooh, claims it can do nothing but “urge” the wet markets to refrain from selling endangered species and animals teeming with zoonotic killer viruses. The Global Times enthused that business would boom at the reopened market because shoppers can now indulge their exotic appetites at discount prices. Although the CCP itself used to blame the coronavirus outbreak on wet markets and made noises about shutting them down at the height of global outrage, Chinese propaganda now denounces foreign criticism of the markets as “slander” and cultural arrogance. From another Global Times piece on Tuesday:
Western politicians and media outlets have now found a new target in their “coronavirus blame game” against China, as Wuhan, the Chinese city hit hardest by the coronavirus outbreak, lifted its 76-day lockdown and has gradually reopened its farmers and wet markets. They alleged the wet markets are the origin of the virus and incubators of human disease, and asked the permanent shutdown of the markets. As it is deeply related to their daily life, angry Chinese people believe such groundless and ridiculous request of closing those markets, which plays a pivotal role in providing them with fresh, affordable and sustainable daily food, is equivalent to “forbidding us from eating,” and market vendors decried whoever asked China to close these markets and demanded them to support vendors financially. Also, Western politicians and media, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today and Bloomberg, deceived by their preconceived idea of Chinese markets, accused such markets as hotbeds of selling wild animals, where on-site slaughter of animals is prevalent, and operated under unhygienic conditions. Some like the New York Post, a US newspaper, went further by saying that China is planning to export those wild animals after it bans consuming them inside its soil.
https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2020/04/14/china-reopens-wet-markets-world-health-organizations-blessing/