Fingers are being pointed. Hot-headed accusations are flying left, right, and center. "Who is to blame for the novel coronavirus?"

America and China are swept up in a verbal tennis match, volleying culpability back and forth until someone faults. One question however appears to be playing its own game, dancing in the minds of many… could this just be nature's backlash?

Most experts agree that a wet meat market in Wuhan, China is where this latest outbreak began. COVID-19 was likely transmitted to one or more humans by the consumption of wild animals, many of whom are slaughtered in front of each other while fully conscious. Yet, these markets also operate right here in the United States, meaning this deadly outbreak could have happened anywhere.

Just like COVID-19, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) originated from a wet meat market in China and killed roughly 800 people in 2003. Bird flu (H5N1), which killed hundreds of people in the mid-2000s, originated on a bird farm in China as well. However, just a few years later, swine flu (H1N1), which was first discovered in Mexico but has since been traced to pig farms in the United States, is estimated to have killed between 151,700 and 575,400 people.

Noticing a pattern? They all originate from commodifying, killing, and then eating animals.

Inside meat markets and factory farms, thousands of sickly animals are forced to endure lives in macabre conditions that are ripe with disease. By stuffing thousands of animals into one room, all with the same genetic make-up, superbugs run rampant through available hosts. As the world has seen, lethal zoonotic viruses like SARS, bird flu, swine flu, and COVID-19 do not require any middle ground to infect us - they can easily jump from one species to another.

We've been playing an extremely cruel and dangerous game for far too long. The ramifications are clear, yet we continue to exploit defenseless animals, all the while pointing the finger at anyone but ourselves.

The next time a pandemic threatens our way of life, where will we point our fingers when globally we are all to blame?

It’s time to take responsibility for our food choices. Download your free Veg Starter Guide today, and call on your legislators to ask them to immediately shut down wet meat markets here in the United States.

We have the power to build a kinder and healthier world for all, starting this very minute.