WILL THEY EVER LEARN? CHINESE MARKETS ARE STILL SELLING BATS AND SLAUGHTERING RABBITS ON BLOOD-SOAKED FLOORS AS BEIJING CELEBRATES ‘VICTORY’ OVER THE CORONAVIRUS

• Cats, dogs and other domesticated and wild animals freely available to buy
• One sources says that: ‘the markets have gone back to operating in exactly the same way as they did before coronavirus’ despite the outbreaks links to bats
• Wild animals still for sale as food and traditional medicine in Chinese markets
• Coronavirus symptoms: what are they and should you see a doctor?

By George Knowles For The Mail,28 March 2020

Terrified dogs and cats crammed into rusty cages. Bats and scorpions offered for sale as traditional medicine. Rabbits and ducks slaughtered and skinned side by side on a stone floor covered with blood, filth, and animal remains.

Those were the deeply troubling scenes yesterday as China celebrated its ‘victory’ over the coronavirus by reopening squalid meat markets of the type that started the pandemic three months ago, with no apparent attempt to raise hygiene standards to prevent a future outbreak.

As the pandemic that began in Wuhan forced countries worldwide to go into lockdown, a Mail on Sunday correspondent yesterday watched as thousands of customers flocked to a sprawling indoor market in Guilin, south-west China.

Here cages of different species were piled on top of each other. In another meat market in Dongguan, southern China, another correspondent photographed a medicine seller returning to business on Thursday with a billboard advertising bats – thought to be the cause of the initial Wuhan outbreak – along with scorpions and other creatures.

The shocking scenes came as China finally lifted a weekslong nationwide lockdown and encouraged people to go back to normal daily life to boost the flagging economy. Official statistics indicated there were virtually no new infections.

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