Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the leading members on the White House's coronavirus task force, said on Friday he is flabbergasted that the Chinese Communist Party has not yet shut down the wet markets in the country since it is heavily suspected COVID-19 originated in a Wuhan wet market.
Wet markets in China are where live animals are killed and sold in the same area for food, often including wild animals. This allows diseases normally restricted to animals an opportunity to have more exposure to humans.
"Are you calling, because this is the second major disease that’s poisoned the world from this area, are you calling for the closure of the wet markets that has for sale monkeys and bats and horrible things like that?" Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade asked.
"Well, I have no authority to call for anything, but I can certainly tell you how I feel. I think we should shut down those things right away. It’s just, it boggles my mind how when we have so many diseases that emanate out of that unusual human animal interface that we don’t just shut it down," Fauci said.
"I don’t know what else has to happen to get us to appreciate that, and I think there are certain countries in which this is very common place. I would like to see the rest of the world really lean with a lot of pressure on those countries that have that, because what we’re going through right now is a direct result of that," he added.
China's handling of wet markets is one of the many ways it has not properly dealt with the current coronavirus outbreak. The authoritarian government has also given other countries faulty medical equipment, spread conspiracy theories on the virus's origins, and have made medical whistleblowers disappear.