Western countries employ intensive farming techniques and some have live animal markets, are you saying its impossible for a pandemic such as COVID-19 to originate in a western country? There was an outbreak of mad cow disease in the UK not that long ago if I remember rightly. That's a genuine question by the way, I'm not a scientist, not sure if you are.
Already answered it mate. We have health and safety standards and - taking your Mad Cow Disease as an example - the UK acted definitively on that and put in numerous inquiries and measures to stop it happening again. We did the same with the salmonella scare which saw the Red Lion mark brought in.
An even better example is Swine Flu, originated in a small part of Mexico in all likelihood, due to poor hygiene and animal practices. Since then studies have been done detailing how transmission is more likely due to the transport of pigs of different varieties etc. - I can't find the exact evidence (I've read it before) but I know for sure that measures have been put in place to make the likelihood of virus development from such farming techniques less likely. Not impossible, but less likely.
That's the difference - where this has happened before, actions have been taken to minimise the risk of it happening again. Yet what did China do after SARS? The square sum of nothing. If they'd have done
anything differently or pro-actively then we wouldn't be having this discussion, but no - they closed the wet markets for the equivalent of five minutes, then re-opened them and it was business as usual.
That's why I call it uniquely negligent.
