On April 16th, the Public Health Committee of Heilongjiang Province released the places that the newly reported asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19 had been. One of the 11 new cases of local carriers visited the Daowai bird market on April 5th.
The April 5th was the day when our volunteers went there for investigation. Because our volunteers found that the market was filled with people, and the majority were without masks, the volunteers called the mayor’s hotline for multiple times to report the issue. However, no action was taken, and no change was made.
The open-air market in Daowai District, Harbin, is infamous national-wide for its long-term practice of illegal trade in all kinds of birds. At some point in March, while the novel coronavirus pandemic was still ongoing, CBCGDF volunteers found that the market was “revived”. They called the mayor’s hotline but the Daowai government indicated that they knew nothing about the illegal trade of birds at their front door!
Some volunteers of animal conservation kept calling through the mayor’s hotline to ask for some crowd control and to lower the risk of public safety since the late March but ending with no actual response. Since the asymptomatic carrier had been to the market and only a few people in the market wore masks, the volunteers kept calling the government for a resolution.
Historically, zoonotic infectious diseases, which are the diseases spilled from wild animals including birds, contributed more than 70 percent of human infectious diseases. Why can the Daowai bird market still be openly operated? How dare it to dismiss the ban of wildlife trade by the National People’s Congress? Why there was no action taken after tens of phone calls?
Today, there is such a big loophole in the prevention and control of the epidemic in Harbin. Is this accidental?
(Photo credit: CBCGDF)
Original Chinese article:
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/QwANYfa0slIG7TAGrtKYMg
By / Ender Sun Modified / Maggie
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