COVID-19 Outbreak (Update: More than 2.9M cases and 132,313 deaths in US)

St. Widge said

True, but the point is that wet markets not all that different from the ones in China are all over the world and are just as likely to result in the same thing happening. If the Chinese were guilty of being negligent in allowing them so is most of the rest of the world.

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Yeah, agree. It might be something that the viral science can show is just too dangerous at this point (the numbers and the proximity are getting too high) and there can be pressure to end it.

But you can't say it's a source of fault for this outbreak - like you said, they're common around the world. The better focus is on China's initial response in the first few weeks (in December). Governments should be held accountable for failing to alert the world community about a new virus. We have avenues for it, alert the public-health agencies just as a good world citizen - and let the science steer the response. The early period is so critical, there has to be disclosure requirements.

What if the next one is in an African country fraught with corruption and factionalism - and it's a much worse virus? What if the next one is in China? We need a new global accord on emerging disease that focuses on early sharing of information. The WHO was supposed to be that structure but it's clearly broken.