Coronavirus Cradle? Inside China's Controversial 'Wet Markets'

A Chinese policeman reacts to a photographer shooting the shuttered Wuhan seafood market on March 30. Note the black signboard above the entrance at right. 

The same entrance to the market on January 11 before the entrance sign was covered.
 
The massive "wet market" in China's Hubei Province was shut down soon after it was discovered most of the first victims of the disease now known as COVID-19 either worked at or had visited the market.

"Wet markets," like this one in Beijing, sell fresh produce such as fish, meat, and vegetables. They are named largely for the water used to hose down the stalls at the end of each day, often leaving the floors so wet that vendors work in rubber boots.  

Most wet markets in China and across Asia trade only in common vegetables...

...and meats.

However, some wet markets are known to sell exotic animals -- such as civet cats -- for their meat. A 2003 outbreak of a coronavirus known as SARS killed hundreds of people in several countries. It is believed the epidemic began after a bat infected civet cats, which in turn infected a person. Chinese authorities responded by ordering the slaughter of some 10,000 civet cats.

A man in Nanjing sleeps on cages of chickens with bound ducks nearby. Most new infectious diseases come from animals. Markets where different animal species are butchered are believed to have been ground zero for several recent viral outbreaks.

Men prepare chickens and dogs as caged geese look on at a wet market in China's Yunnan Province. Viruses can be passed from animals to people by inhaling an animal’s breath, eating food contaminated with animal feces, or exchanging bodily fluids -- as might happen when a butcher works with a cut on his hand.

A dead crocodile at a wet market in Guangzhou, China. Such animals are rarely seen in China’s markets but, according to a price list published by The Guardian, several exotic species of animals including such "delicacies as bats, foxes, crocodiles, giant salamanders, snakes, and porcupines" were on sale at Wuhan's now-infamous seafood market.