https://grain.org/e/6437

In this fascinating and deeply disturbing piece from GRAIN, ‘a small international non-profit organisation that works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems’:

‘Let’s be clear: there is no solid evidence that the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is the cause of the current Covid-19 disease pandemic, is an open seafood market in Wuhan that also trades in domestic and wild animals. All that we know is that several early cases of people diagnosed with Covid-19 either worked at this market or shopped there in the days preceding their diagnosis. Many media outlets and pundits have seized on this information to claim that Chinese wet markets and the live trade in domestic and wild animals are to blame for the emergence of the disease¹. And some are even calling for a ban on wet markets— which are vital to the livelihoods and food security of millions of small farmers, traders and consumers.’

The authors go on to argue that factory pig farms run by corporations are a more plausible source.

This looks like another classic case of scapegoating of a powerless group by the corporate media in the interests of powerful groups such as corporations.

Readers will remember the media scapegoating of immigrants for supposedly putting pressure on the UK’s over-stretched public services and draining resources they had not contributed too. The Leave movement made much of this to persuade the indigenous poor in the UK to vote for a change that most benefited the rich, anxious to escape more progressive EU tax laws and ‘costly’ workers’ rights. As we know, the younger fitter immigrant community was, in fact, paying more than its share in taxation and relying less on services than the older, less well, indigenous population. It was also keeping the NHS, social care and service industries staffed.