Do you see what I see? A market, fruits, vegetables, meat… streets packed full of people, the
hustle bustle of the day. Or do you see a market with the power to shut down the world.
You see humans are pretty good with what we can see but what we don’t see… with the
naked eye is where we get into trouble.
This here is the Wuhan market in, you guessed it, Wuhan China which is believed to be the
source of the coronavirus. What’s shocking about this picture here is it was taken just
after the outbreak started yet people flood into the source of the virus to buy up goods
probably because they know this market would get shut down, which it did.
But how did we get here.. To mass chaos, people trapped at home, thousands perishing from
this disease? Well superstition essentially, let me explain. As someone who was a part
of a Chinese family for almost 8 years I can attest that superstition is a major part of
Chinese culture. I’m not sure if this comes from decades of poverty in China which basically
put the pursuit of prosperity at the top of the list, and anything that would help was
welcomed.. including superstitions.
Now Chinese medicine has some very useful applications but it also has a bunch of nonsense
which promotes the sale of endangered animals at blackmarkets and wet markets throughout
China.
What is a wet market you might ask? The term wet market originates from Hong Kong which
is basically a market that sells live animals along with dead ones. Animals in cages or
hanging from hooks usually in open air street markets, sometimes in buildings like you see
here in hong kong. The problem with these places… well it’s obvious there is a lack
of hygiene and sanitation. These places are breeding grounds for disease or worse passing
along diseases from one animal to another which is why the world is in chaos as we speak.
Ok so how did we get here? Well if we go back to 2003 this situation isn’t new, the SARS
virus infected only 8000 people and killed about 800 of those which came from an animal.
This handsome guy here the Rhinolophus genus of bats which has numerous species which was
the source BUT.. the virus was transmitted through another animal… the palm civet.
The Paguma larvata or masked palm civet to be exact as there are other species. Now these
cute creatures, well I think they’re cute maybe you think they look like giant rats
were the vector, the host of the sars virus from the bats into humans. This is made possible
by places that unnaturally have all these animals in confined spaces such as wet markets.
Now let me introduce the pangolin, the scaly anteater or Manis temminckii. This 3 foot
long critically endangered animal is covered in large, protective scales, these scales
are made of keratin or structural proteins that are the key material that makes up claws,
hooves, horns, hair, nails and feathers of other animals. What’s interesting about
this though is the pangolin is the only known mammal with these protective scales.
They live in a burrow, usually a hollowed out tree unless we are talking about the ones
who live in wet markets around the world, mostly in China though. Nocturnal or not these
mammals at some point were placed in a cage nearby or likely underneath some bats who
defecated or peed in their own cage which saturated the pangolin’s cage. This completely
unnatural existence in places like the Wuhan Market is what gave birth, most likely as
we don’t exactly know, to the coronavirus or covid-19. But why would someone keep this
animal in a wet market.. Who would buy them?
Now if you’re looking for the least fashionable coat ever made this pangolin scale coat was
given to King George III in 1820 but the desire to make pangolin clothing isn’t the reason
the pangolin is the world’s most trafficked mammal. Threatened by poaching these animals
have long been found in Chinese and Vietnamese wet markets.
They are prized for their meat and scales, the meat is a delicacy in China and Vietnam
and is said to aid with kidney function and sells for $150 a pound at specialty restaurants.
Often the pangolin is brought out alive and killed in front of everyone at the table to
prove it’s freshness. The scales though is what really drives the sale of pangolins.
Traditional Chinese medicine claims the scales offer magical curing benefits such as hysterical
crying in children, excessive anxiety, malaria, deafness and if all those being cured by this
creature’s scales wasn’t enough apparently they will cure women who have been possessed
by devils and ogres. I’m not making this up, I couldn’t make up something this ridiculous.
This isn’t all though they have to be prepared in a special manner, used raw they are no
good. They need to be dried then roasted, cooked in oil and butter, vinegar, a boy’s
urine or sometimes roasted with oyster shells. Ya you heard that right… one must ask though
is there a criteria for the boy? Must he be dehydrated or maybe well hydrated? What if
he likes to eat a lot of asparagus? Who decides how these magical properties work?
Ok… so… the world is in chaos today because bats poop on pangolins being kept in cages
who’s scales are peed on by a boy and consumed to remove an evil curse placed on a woman
from an ogre. Why is it only the women? Do men get possessed by something else like a
bugbear or the cookie monster?
So bascially we have this essentially defenseless little animal who’s only protection is rolling
up into a ball, which does protect the african species against lions side fact, and hoping
a predator goes away which is hunted and sold for stupid reasons… ok. As of January 2020
3 of the 8 species of pangolins are critically endangered and you can bet your toilet paper
by the end of this year 1 or more of these species will be extinct. You see when one
of these viruses comes out which comes from an animal or a specific animal is a carrier
they get all the blame when really having dozens of different types of endangered animals
in wet markets in places like China is the real problem. These animals are then hunted
into the ground as being the “evil source” of the problem when really human greed and
superstitious traditions are really what’s at fault here.
Believe it or not, until recently some health care providers covered medical conditions
that called for the use of pangolin scales in Vietnam. I sure hope we don’t get a surge
of people asking to get tested for ogre curses now that the pangolin scales are off the market.
Today as compared to the 8000 cases of SARS covid-19 or coronavirus has about ½ a million
cases, with 20,000 deaths. With that said there are still 15,000 people in serious or
critical condition and cases are exponentially going up everyday. We don't know exactly which
animal created the covid-19 virus. It's possible it came from the same Rhinolophus genus of
bats and was passed along to pangolins and then to humans. This is the general belief
at this moment but it’s possible the virus was transferred to the pangolin where it underwent
another mutation to make it what it is today or could have been from another animal all
together. It does appear the pangolin these friendly looking armored little creatures
are the creature that delivered the virus to humans though.