Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham is urging China to shut down its wet markets where exotic animals are sold for human consumption because of the markets’ role in the transmission of devastating outbreaks like the coronavirus.
“These wet markets in China, people eat bats and they eat monkeys, and bats and monkeys — at least bats for sure — carry this kind of virus,” the South Carolina Republican told “The Story” host Martha MacCallum on Friday.
“This is where ebola came from, this is where the SARS came from, and this lab may be 300 yards away from the wet market in China where they test bats for coronavirus infection, but people literally eating bats 300 yards down the road.”
The senator pointed to comments made by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who said that the global community should help force a closure of the wet markets in China.
“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 told “Fox & Friends.”
DC murder rate sees astonishing turnaround as Trump team credits federal crackdown
US military kills two suspected narco-terrorists in strike on drug-trafficking vessel in the Pacific
Fox News Campus Radicals Newsletter: UCLA mob mess, veiled threats of violence and a major win over DEI
NFL Legend and Hall of Famer Abruptly Hospitalized, Lawyer and Friend Issues Update
Trump Admin Throws Out Obama-Era Gender Rule in Favor of ‘What the Lord Established from the Beginning’
Florida Dem filed for re-election days before resignation as House Ethics Committee ramped up pressure
Poll Shows Young People Fleeing Major Dem City Due to Cost of Living, Safety, And Jobs
NANNY STATE: UK Slaps Nation’s Youth with Permanent Lifetime Smoking Ban
Grinning suspect cuffed after alleged fiery street takeover, drag race caught on camera
Texas substitute teacher accused of improper relationship with student, alarming parents
DHS blames ‘weak’ Biden border policies after piracy-linked Somali illegal immigrant nabbed at northern border
Incredible Video: Skycam Catches Massive Tornado Narrowly Missing Oklahoma Town During Violent Storm Outbreak
Trump Gives LA Mayor Karen Bass Special Copy of Bible During Oval Office Meeting
Mamdani in the hot seat after first veto derails bipartisan effort to combat antisemitism: ‘Disappointed’
Transgender lawmaker ‘doesn’t know what a woman is,’ White House says after dig at Trump firings
“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.”
Graham said he is sending a letter with Democratic Sens. Cory Booker and Chris Coons to the World Health Organization and the Chinese government demanding they permanently close the wet markets.
“Sixteen percent of all deaths in the world are infectious diseases and about 60 percent of them come from animal to human transmission,” Graham told MacCallum.
The senator added that there were wet markets in Southeast Asia and Africa, not just in China.
“We need to stop that. It’s the 21st century,” he said.
By late January, NPR and other outlets reported the novel coronavirus most likely originated in a massive, well-traveled wet market in the city of Wuhan, China.
Medical experts on the ground indicated at the time that Huanan Seafood Market had been the only major common denominator between those individuals admitted to Wuhan hospitals with the first known cases of the virus.
DC murder rate sees astonishing turnaround as Trump team credits federal crackdown
US military kills two suspected narco-terrorists in strike on drug-trafficking vessel in the Pacific
Fox News Campus Radicals Newsletter: UCLA mob mess, veiled threats of violence and a major win over DEI
NFL Legend and Hall of Famer Abruptly Hospitalized, Lawyer and Friend Issues Update
Trump Admin Throws Out Obama-Era Gender Rule in Favor of ‘What the Lord Established from the Beginning’
Florida Dem filed for re-election days before resignation as House Ethics Committee ramped up pressure
Poll Shows Young People Fleeing Major Dem City Due to Cost of Living, Safety, And Jobs
NANNY STATE: UK Slaps Nation’s Youth with Permanent Lifetime Smoking Ban
Grinning suspect cuffed after alleged fiery street takeover, drag race caught on camera
Texas substitute teacher accused of improper relationship with student, alarming parents
DHS blames ‘weak’ Biden border policies after piracy-linked Somali illegal immigrant nabbed at northern border
Incredible Video: Skycam Catches Massive Tornado Narrowly Missing Oklahoma Town During Violent Storm Outbreak
Trump Gives LA Mayor Karen Bass Special Copy of Bible During Oval Office Meeting
Mamdani in the hot seat after first veto derails bipartisan effort to combat antisemitism: ‘Disappointed’
Transgender lawmaker ‘doesn’t know what a woman is,’ White House says after dig at Trump firings
Virologists and medical researchers suggest that the novel coronavirus is more than likely a zoonotic virus, having originated in bats and spread to other animals within the market before making the jump to humans.
Graham called on President Donald Trump to demand that Chinese President Xi Jinping “crack down” on the wet markets.
“What I would tell President Trump is call up President Xi and say, ‘Listen, you just reopened the wet market in Wuhan where we believe all of this came from. Crack down on bringing exotic and wild animals into these wet markets where they contaminate the food supply and human beings,’” he said.
“Bats carry this stuff, and they literally eat bats. Stop eating bats!”
As of Saturday afternoon, there were almost 1.2 million cases of coronavirus worldwide, roughly 300,000 of which are in the United States, according to data from Johns Hopkins.
