At this point, many epidemiologists do not believe that SARS-CoV-2 made the jump from animal to human in the infamous Wuhan wet-market. Since a lot of people caught it from the market back in January much of the media decided that the Chinese proclivities for wild animals were to blame for the pandemic. This helped perpetuate a racist narrative. Many are even calling for a ban on wet markets.
There is a growing body of evidence that points to a different origin story for Covid-19. We now know that none of the animals tested at the Wuhan seafood market tested positive and about a third of the initial set of reported cases in people in Wuhan from early December 2019 had no connection to the seafood market, including the first reported case. And we also now know, thanks to the leak of an official Chinese report to the South China Morning Post that the actual first known case of Covid-19 in Hubei was detected in mid-November, weeks before the cluster of cases connected to the Wuhan seafood market were reported.
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The scientists conclude that SARS-CoV-2 evolved from natural selection and not genetic engineering in a lab, and they say that this natural selection occurred through two possible scenarios. One is that it evolved into its highly pathogenic form within humans. In this case, a less pathogenic form of the virus would have jumped from an animal to a human host and then would have evolved into its current form through an “extended period” of “undetected human-to-human transmission”. Under this scenario, there is no reason to believe that the Wuhan seafood market had anything to do with the evolution of the disease, even if it is quite possible that an infected person at the market could have transmitted it to others.
New research suggests industrial livestock, not wet markets, might be origin of Covid-19
Farm animals can be an excellent incubator for virtual diseases that are evolving to make a jump to humans.
The overwhelming majority of farmed animals are kept in dark, unsanitary, overcrowded factory farms, which stresses their immune systems. Worse, they’re bred primarily for rapid growth and maximum output, not robustness, and their genetic similarity makes them especially likely to transmit disease to one another. Animal after animal, they are churned through the system, often on the same dirty floors, the same stagnant trucks, and the same slaughter lines. This system puts everyone’s health at risk.
Reducing pandemic risk begins with ending factory farming
But even if the first human was infected at the Wuhan market it’s still easy to point a finger at factory farming.
It’s true, in other words, that an expanding human population pushing into previously undisturbed ecosystems has contributed to the increasing number of zoonoses – human infections of animal origin – in recent decades. That has been documented for Ebola and HIV, for example. But behind that shift has been another, in the way food is produced. Modern models of agribusiness are contributing to the emergence of zoonoses.
Is factory farming to blame for coronavirus?
If you’re not doing it already, it’s time to start growing your own food!
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