BLUF:[Hot Air] Back in 2009, (author) Sonia Shah visited one of the so-called "wet markets" in China where she observed the staggering variety of wild, exotic animals mixed in together and being butchered and served up. Unlike livestock raised on farms, the wild game always comes with viruses aplenty, but they usually don’t bother human beings. Shah noted that the coronavirus has been around forever, but rarely gets out of hand. But with all the strange animals and meats in the wet markets comingling, she foresaw a time when, much like cholera, those viruses would begin evolving and jumping from species to species until something really nasty that was capable of making the leap to people emerged. Enter WuFlu, now believed to have been spawned in those Chinese wet markets in the form of an evolved coronavirus.
Shah also noted that the death toll from such a pandemic wouldn’t be sufficient to wipe out the entire human population, but the plague would only be the beginning of our problems. After a pandemic of that magnitude, the global economic recession that followed would be a disaster, wiping out literally trillions of dollars in capital. That’s not hard to believe. Already this week we saw the markets contract, largely over concerns about reduced travel and trade as a result of the virus impacting business.
About the author link found here.