Well, the day finally came.
Public health officials are now advising members of the public to wear masks.
But let's not be crazy- they alone aren't going to protect you. They're meant to protect others, in case you have the virus but are an asymptomatic carrier. That means they need to be worn over your mouth AND nose, and preferably sit close to the face. These masks are pointless if they're ill-fitting. Plus, you should still practice social distancing and wash your hands like your life depends on it.
Of even more importance: don't use medical supplies. Make your own. Have somebody make one for you (that's what I did). Just don't take valuable supplies away from the workers that need them most. Unless you're working with patients on the front line of this, you're not one of those workers.
But mass mask advisories aren't the thing that is craziest to me right now.
No, the thing that has me shocked, horrified, and outraged is the news that wet markets in China are re-opening.
Are you kidding me??? This is how we got into this mess in the first place.
Wet markets are places where you can expect to see unhygienic practices (like slaughtering of live animals) occurring right next to fresh produce. Combine that with all kinds of animals (exotic and domestic) packed into cramped areas, add in high volumes of human traffic, and you have the perfect storm for disease.
Exactly what happened with COVID-19.
They say that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. After the global outbreak of SARS in 2002, wet markets in China were closed. Seems logical, right?
Except two years later, they were fully open again. Now, we have ANOTHER outbreak of a viral strain related to SARS (COVID-19 is caused by SARS-CoV-2), and the wet markets are still open. How many outbreaks need to happen before that changes?
There's already mass outrage online. There are dozens of petitions going around the world trying to put pressure on the Chinese government to put an end to these practices. There are videos coming out of people eating bats, eating live baby mice, and in one video, boiling dogs alive. It's barbaric. It's disgusting. It's inhumane, and it's causing disease. Thousands of people are dead from something that could have been so easily prevented.
Realistically, I could go on about this for a while. But the reality is, something needs to change. Until people manage to figure out that these wet markets are antithetical to morality and health, we're doomed to face outbreak after outbreak, watch shocking video after shocking video, all while the willfully ignorant scratch their heads about what's causing all this.
We, as a global community, are facing something unprecedented here. When this is all over, and the dust has settled, we have choices to make. Choices about whether to demand change and shut down substandard and immoral markets, or let the mistakes of the past continue to be repeated.
I, for one, would like for us to be on the right side of history.
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