Too Little Too Late? China Vows to Make Drastic Changes

China has vowed to phase out the live-poultry trade in a series of measures aimed a preventing another coronavirus spread.

Many people around the world are complaining that China has left it too late as it tries to improve sanitary conditions at its wet markets in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Chinese government has announced its plan to the world to phase out the live-poultry trade out of concerns over public food safety in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, this comes after the news that northern China is experiencing a fresh outbreak of COVID-19.

Beijing’s market watchdog today vowed to restrict the killing and trading of live farm animals, such as chicken and ducks, in the country’s ubiquitous wet markets, the wholesale bat trade was conspicuous in its emission from the document, however.

An official said the authority would gradually phase out the traditional trade by encouraging cities to arrange centralised production lines whenever possible. The announcement came as China stepped up inspections of wholesale food markets and outlawed the sale and consumption of wildlife, after a recent COVID-19 outbreak in Beijing was traced to a major agricultural wholesale market.

The virus is generally believed to have emerged at a market that sold live animals in the central city of Wuhan late last year, the Chinese government is at the moment “helping the WHO” with their enquiries as to the origin of the outbreak and has pointed the finger at Spain. This insinuation is apparently based on the fact that Scientists in Barcelona Spain said recently that they had found traces of the virus in sewage samples taken in March 2019.

“China will restrict the trading and slaughter of live poultry, encourage the mass slaughter of live poultry in places with certain conditions, and gradually close live poultry markets,” said Chen Xu, an official at the State Administration of Market Regulation, at a press briefing.

Live poultry kept in cages is a common sight in agricultural wholesale food markets and “wet markets”—smaller-scale fresh food markets—across China.