To protect the future hold China to account
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In any just and lawful setting, actors who recklessly pursue hazardous activities would be held accountable for foreseeable harm caused to others.
In the winter of 2002–2003, the deadly SARS coronavirus exploded out of China’s ‘wet-blood’ wildlife markets. SARS infected over 8,000 people worldwide and killed almost 800. Yet post-crisis, China laxly enforced bans on the offending markets, only to permit them to flourish soon thereafter. Today’s COVID-19 is the deadly and avoidable legacy of China’s recklessness.
U.S. secretary of state Mike Pompeo has proclaimed that COVID-19 stems from just such Chinese ‘wet-blood’ markets. While Beijing has praised them as protein sources, their unsanitary practices have long been identified as “perfect viral melting pots” for zoonotic diseases — diseases that jump from animals to man.
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