A bat infecting a pig could easily happen in Italy. Or anywhere else for that matter.

No, not even close. Those wet markets are a fucking nightmare. There are truly optimized for pulling new diseases into the human population. Thousands of animals, hundreds of different species, many known to be reservoirs of potential human pathogens, crammed together in close proximity with each other and with humans who eat them.

In his interview with Joe Rogan, Michael Osterholm called it "the perfect experiment that no university would let you do":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3URhJx0NSw

Their discussion of wet markets starts at around 1:01:00.

You are missing the point of my comment. A bat infecting a pig or some other two step is a pre-cursor to many Zoonotic events. Those wet markets are indeed a huge accelerator. But the pre-conditions exist in many places and all it takes is one butcher that isn't paying attention and you've got the ball rolling.

Africa and Asia have a lot of this and so are a recurring theme in these very unfortunate stories. But it could happen here, and viruses really don't care about location.

Wet markets and bushmeat is how we got SARS and HIV. We're not sure if COVID-19 was really transferred that way, maybe we'll never know. The Swine flu also jumped species in a regular farm. So there are lots of opportunities all over the world, some more dangerous than others.

Bushmeat gave us Ebola as well. Deer hunting might give us CWD soon (we observed transmission to human-model mice already) and that one is basically disinfectable only by using high heat and pressure together.

Bushmeat gives Ebola over-and-over again. It has crossed the species barrier many times already.

And let's not forget about diseases like these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_spongiform_encephalopat...

Even though they do not involve viruses they are still part of a similar kind of interplay between species.

What you're saying doesn't make any sense. You said, "A bat infecting a pig could easily happen in Italy". How is a careless Italian butcher in any way comparable to a seething, filthy wet market where live pigs and bats are crammed into stacked cages? How much bat do you think they eat in Italy? Do Dutch butchers serve bat or pangolin or dog meat, or keep wild birds in cages on top of ferrets, which are good animal models for human influenza infections?

As a vegetarian, I'll happily acknowledge the barbarity and health hazards of factory meat production in the Western world. But this really is a tortured apples-to-oranges thing you're doing here. There is simply no valid comparison between a European meat grocer and a Chinese wet market, and I think you know it.

The world is a lot larger than Europe, and there are documented cases of Zoonosis from all over the planet (in fact, a good 2/3rds or so of our pathogens are of Zoonotic origin). Also, this particular virus likely did not cross over in a wet market, there is no evidence for that.

As for how much better the EU is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic_in_Europe

Is a good example of what can happen here.

Again, you said "A bat infecting a pig could easily happen in Italy". I'm calling bullshit on that. I know it's just a silly example, but the risk of a virus hopping from a bat to a pig in Italy (again, how many bats do Italians eat?) is not comparable to a Chinese wet market, where beasts of all kinds, their waste, and products of butchery are intimately mixed every day.

> Also, this particular virus likely did not cross over in a wet market, there is no evidence for that.

If you're relying on a lack of absolute physical proof to support your argument, then I guess you win. Otherwise, there absolutely is evidence that this virus jumped from an animal reservoir local to Hubei, and that the wet markets are perfectly designed to facilitate that process. You're being a bit slippery on this point, but it really isn't the least bit controversial among virologists or epidemiologists.

American-style factory farming of cattle, swine, and poultry, where uncountable animals are crammed together and kept alive with antibiotics, is maybe a valid comparison. America is creating it's own epidemic of antibiotic resistance with the help of these farms (and so is China for that matter). But that does not -- or at least logically should not -- assuage anyone's discomfort with the health hazards of wet markets.

> one butcher that isn't paying attention

What are you suggesting exactly--that a slightly inattentive butcher wouldn't notice the difference between a leg of pork and a bat?

No, that there is a typical one-two step to a Zoonotic event where the jump from a reservoir animal to an animal that is regularly consumed is made.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_reservoir

For plenty of these events we do not know the reservoir animal (yet). So that butcher will know they are butchering a pig, not a bat. But that pig may have become infected and if the butcher isn't very careful he may infect himself and if the meat isn't prepared carefully it may infect those that consume it. And by the time we realize it has happened these important bits of data may have already been lost.

There is a very good book on the theme called 'Spillover', highly recommended and so far it seems to have been exactly on the money with how this whole thing unfolds. Uncanny actually, it is like having the spoiler for a movie that wasn't made yet.

What we know so far is that it's likely to have started at a wet market in Wuhan where people lived with bats and other wild animals. Chances of cross-infection are much higher in that scenario.

The virus cannot have started back in November and started at the wet market at the same time.

Either one is true or the other is true.

People don't live with bats. The animals they farm live near bats.

What about smoked BBQ bat?

https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2012/08/07/15822...