The health and safety of Australia's continues to be under significant risk.

The coronavirus spreading in China and the SARS outbreak of 2003 have two things in common: Both are from the coronavirus family, and both likely started in wet markets.

At such markets, outdoor stalls are squeezed together to form narrow lanes, where locals and visitors shop for cuts of meat and ripe produce. A stall selling hundreds of caged chickens may abut a butcher counter, where meat is chopped as nearby dogs watch hungrily. Some vendors hock skinned hares, while seafood stalls display glistening fish and shrimp.

Wet markets put people and live and dead animals – dogs, chickens, pigs, snakes, civets, and more – in constant close contact. That makes it easy for a virus to jump from animal to human.

On January 22, authorities in Wuhan, China – where the current outbreak started – banned the trade of live animals at wet markets. 

WE NOW DEMAND THAT ALL TRAVEL FROM CHINA AND CHINESE NATIONALS UNTIL THE PRACTICE OF EATING BATS, ENDANGERED ANIMALS AND OTHER THINGS THEY SIMPLY SHOULD NOT BE EATING HAS BEEN ELIMINATED.