{"id":100030,"date":"2020-03-16T17:35:31","date_gmt":"2020-03-17T00:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=100030"},"modified":"2020-03-16T17:35:31","modified_gmt":"2020-03-17T00:35:31","slug":"the-two-dark-sides-of-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/03\/16\/the-two-dark-sides-of-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"The Two Dark Sides of COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Peter Singer & Paola Cavalieri courtesy Asian Tribune<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The apocalyptic images of the\nlocked-down Chinese city of Wuhan have reached us all. The world is holding its\nbreath over the spread of the new coronavirus, COVID-19, and governments are\ntaking or preparing drastic measures that will necessarily sacrifice individual\nrights and freedoms for the general good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some focus their anger on China\u2019s\ninitial lack of transparency about the outbreak. The philosopher Slavoj \u017di\u017eek\nhas spoken of the racist paranoia\u201d at work in the obsession with COVID-19 when\nthere are many worse infectious diseases from which thousands die every day.\nThose prone to conspiracy theories believe that the virus is a biological\nweapon aimed at China\u2019s economy. Few mentions, let alone confront, the\nunderlying cause of the epidemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both the 2003 SARS (Severe Acute\nRespiratory Syndrome) epidemic and the current one can be traced to China\u2019s\nwet markets\u201d \u2013 open-air markets where animals are bought live and then\nslaughtered on the spot for the customers. Until late December 2019, everyone\naffected by the virus had some link to Wuhan\u2019s Huanan Market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At China\u2019s wet markets, many\ndifferent animals are sold and killed to be eaten: wolf cubs, snakes, turtles,\nguinea pigs, rats, otters, badgers, and civets. Similar markets exist in many\nAsian countries, including Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In tropical and subtropical areas of\nthe planet, wet markets sell live mammals, poultry, fish, and reptiles, crammed\ntogether and sharing their breath, their blood, and their excrement. As US\nNational Public Radio journalist Jason Beaubien recently reported: Live fish\nin open tubs splash water all over the floor. The countertops of the stalls are\nred with blood as fish are gutted and filleted right in front of the customers’\neyes. Live turtles and crustaceans climb over each other in boxes. Melting ice\nadds to the slush on the floor. There\u2019s lots of water, blood, fish scales, and\nchicken guts.\u201d Wet markets, indeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scientists tell us that keeping\ndifferent animals in close, prolonged proximity with one another and with\npeople creates an unhealthy environment that is the probable source of the\nmutation that enabled COVID-19 to infect humans. More precisely, in such an\nenvironment, a coronavirus long present in some animals underwent rapid\nmutation as it changed from nonhuman host to nonhuman host, and ultimately\ngained the ability to bind to human cell receptors, thus adapting to the human\nhost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This evidence prompted China, on\nJanuary 26, to impose a temporary ban on wildlife animal trade. It is not the\nfirst time that such a measure has been introduced in response to an epidemic.\nFollowing the SARS outbreak China prohibited the breeding, transport, and sale\nof civets and other wild animals, but the ban was lifted six months later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Historically, tragedies such as the\nongoing COVID-19 epidemic have sometimes led to important changes. The probable\nsource of the new coronavirus \u2013 so-called wet markets, at which live animals\nare sold and slaughtered before customers’ eyes \u2013 should be banned not only in\nChina, but worldwide.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, many voices are calling for a\npermanent shutdown of wildlife markets.\u201d Zhou Jinfeng, head of China\u2019s\nBiodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation, has urged that\nillegal wildlife trafficking\u201d be banned indefinitely and has indicated that\nthe National People\u2019s Congress is discussing a bill to outlaw trade in\nprotected species. Focusing on protected species, however, is a ploy to divert\npublic attention away from the appalling circumstances in which animals in wet\nmarkets are forced to live and die. What the world really needs is a permanent\nban on wet markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the animals, wet markets are\nhell on earth. Thousands of sentient, palpitating beings endure hours of\nsuffering and anguish before being brutally butchered. This is just one small\npart of the suffering that humans systematically inflict on animals in every\ncountry \u2013 in factory farms, laboratories, and the entertainment industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we stop to reflect on what we are\ndoing \u2013 and mostly we do not \u2013 we are prone to justify it by appealing to the\nalleged superiority of our species, in much the same way that white people used\nto appeal to the alleged superiority of their race to justify their subjection\nof inferior\u201d humans. But at this moment, when vital human interests so clearly\nrun parallel to the interests of nonhuman animals, this small part of the\nsuffering we inflict on animals offers us the opportunity for a change of\nattitudes toward members of non-human species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To achieve a ban on wet markets, we\nwill have to overcome some specific cultural preferences, as well as resistance\nlinked to the fact that a ban would cause economic hardship to those who make\ntheir living from the markets. But, even without giving nonhuman animals the\nmoral consideration they deserve, these localized concerns are decisively\noutweighed by the calamitous impact that ever more frequent global epidemics\n(and perhaps pandemics) will have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martin Williams, a Hong Kong-based\nwriter specializing in conservation and the environment, puts it well: As long\nas such markets exist, the likelihood of other new diseases emerging will\nremain. Surely, it is time for China to close down these markets. In one fell\nswoop, it would be making progress on animal rights and nature conservation,\nwhile reducing the risk of a \u2018made in China\u2019 disease harming people worldwide.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we would go further.\nHistorically, tragedies have sometimes led to important changes. Markets at\nwhich live animals are sold and slaughtered should be banned not only in China,\nbut all over the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Peter Singer<\/strong> is\nProfessor of Bioethics at Princeton University and founder of the non-profit\norganization The Life You Can Save. His books include Animal Liberation,\nPractical Ethics, The Ethics of What We Eat (with Jim Mason), Rethinking Life\nand Death, The Point of View of the Universe, co-authored with Katarzyna de\nLazari-Radek, The Most Good You Can Do, Famine, Affluence, and Morality, One\nWorld Now, Ethics in the Real World, and Utilitarianism: A Very Short\nIntroduction, also with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek. In 2013, he was named the\nworld’s third “most influential contemporary thinker” by the Gottlieb\nDuttweiler Institute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Paola\nCavalieri, <\/strong>an independent researcher based in Italy, is the author, most\nrecently, of Philosophy and the Politics of Animal Liberation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Asian Tribune –<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Peter Singer & Paola Cavalieri courtesy Asian Tribune The apocalyptic images of the locked-down Chinese city of Wuhan have reached us all. The world is holding its breath over the spread of the new coronavirus, COVID-19, and governments are taking or preparing drastic measures that will necessarily sacrifice individual rights and freedoms for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100030\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}