Paul McCartney has called for the shutdown of China’s wet markets amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a new interview with Howard Stern, McCartney blamed the markets for the spread of the virus, and petitioned for them to be banned.
The “wet markets” in Asia trade in fresh meat and produce, and occasionally live animals. There is a common, theory that COVID-19 originated in a live animal market in Wuhan after it was transmitted from illegally traded bat or pangolin meat. Though this theory is yet to be confirmed, McCartney clearly believes it to be the diseases genesis.
On calling for the markets to be closed, McCartney shared: “I really hope that this will mean the Chinese government says, ‘OK guys, we have really got to get super hygienic around here.’ Let’s face it, it is a little bit medieval eating bats.”
To which Stern replied, “They will not close down these wet markets, that got us into this trouble in the first place. It’s mind-boggling, right?”
“It wouldn’t be so bad if this is the only thing it seems like you can blame on those wet markets,” McCartney continued. “It seems like Sars, avian flu, all sorts of other stuff that has afflicted us … and what’s it for? For these quite medieval practices. They need to clean up their act. This may lead to [change]. If this doesn’t, I don’t know what will.”
When questioned about the petitions to ban wet markets, McCartney, a staunch animal rights activist and vegetarian shared,
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“I think it makes a lot of sense … when you’ve got the obscenity of some of the stuff that’s going on there and what comes out of it, they might as well be letting off atomic bombs. It’s affecting the whole world.
“I understand that part of it is going to be: people have done it for ever, this is the way we do things. But they did slavery forever, too. You’ve got to change things at some point.”
We’re not quite sure about the hamfisted comparison of closing a fresh produce market to the abolition of slavery but we’ll let you make up your own mind about that. You can listen to McCartney’s full interview with Stern on SiriusXM’s website.
