The outbreak of COVID19 (a.k.a NCOV, a.k.a. Novel Coronavirus 2019) sent everyone in panic mode enough to storm out drug stores and any place that sells N95 masks (which are still mostly sold out to date), isopropyl alcohol and hand sanitizers thinking it will protect the vast majority from the virus which is somewhat airborne anyway and will afflict anyone with poor immune system once in contact with an infected person.
The virus said to have come from a province in China called Wuhan wherein exotic meat trade is quite rampant which deems to be true after I saw a video snippet (on Facebook) of animals getting slaughtered somewhere in a market in Wuhan, that, they even slaughter kittens for God’s sake which made my heart sank. A kitten? Seriously? When the virus was still stating to spread, according to the news, it came allegedly from a infected ‘Bat’ then to a Pangolin to a human. At first, I never had an inkling that people still eat Bats nowadays because as far as my knowledge goes, Bats can also be rabid so why the fudge eat them for crying out loud!? I know some people still have this insatiable taste for exotic animals for food thus explains why COVID19 happened in the first place.
When I was young, I remember my Mom constantly told us to stop eating meat because whatever disease animals have will most likely transmitted to humans if we will continue to consume animal meat which eventually was true in the long run and it has always been say in the case of SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in 2003. SARS-CoV which allegedly thought to be an animal virus which might’ve came from bats as well and was spread to other animals (civet cats) which also first infected humans in Guangdong province, southern China back in 2002. The question is how come it’s always in China? I guess the answer is quite obvious, they never stop consuming/eating exotic animals and considering how densely populated China is, spreading the virus is quite inevitable. Rumor has it that China even tried to cover up and threatened medical professionals who will expose that the COVID19 exists thus explains why the virus had spread worldwide. If only the officials in China was quick in disseminating the information about the virus instead of covering it up then the outbreak would’ve not gone full blown as prevention is always better than cure.
The Chinese lunar year celebration also made the matter worse because the citizens of China weren’t aware they already contracted the virus so they went ahead with their long vacation, most of them flew out of their country to celebrate the long holiday. I mean, there weren’t any lock down in China yet until reports of the infection began hitting the news and the death tolls kept rising. As of the moment I’m writing this, the outbreak gravely hit the airline industry big time thus explains the massive lay off because of the travel bans. No travel equals loss of revenue for airline companies and loss of income means danger of insolvency. So just imagine the small news turned into a worldwide health emergency just because of China’s fear to accept the fact that the problem is there and wanted people who knew about the whole situation to keep mum about it. So sad, really sad.
So what’s my point really? I know a lot of people will squirm if I will say ‘when will we ever learn?’ that eating animals isn’t good for humans overall health because I bet 70-80% of people are still meat eaters but it’s true. Animal meat is the main source of coronary heart diseases in humans just to state a major fact. Going vegan is the best decision I have done in my life that I will never regret because aside from the impeccable health benefits, it does not condone violence towards the helpless, voiceless animals not to mention the benefits to our planet. Why can’t humans and animals co-exist peacefully without posing harm to the other? Just because they couldn’t speak for themselves we will take advantage of them? Aren’t the screams and wails enough for them to send their message across? Why are we making this world mirror ‘holocaust’ for them?
Isn’t ‘speciesism’ similar to ‘Genocide’ in humans? I have seen tons of holocaust movies and I can’t help but see the parallelism. During Germany’s dark ages under Hitler’s regime, he commanded to have all Jews executed because of the grudges he hold towards their race for the reason his family suffered after losing their business from Jews. In today’s world, pigs, cows, chicken, fish gets killed for their meat whilst sparing cats, dogs and other animals which does not belong in the poultry, hog industry/category. And I bet these animals born to get slaughtered aren’t even enough that even wild animals are illegally snatched from their habitats to have a ‘taste’ of them for those with adventurous palettes. Animal meat is cheap and easily accessible/sold in fast food chains because retribution time comes when humans gets diagnosed with terminal illnesses resulting to ‘cosmic’ hospital bills. Enough is enough.
It also makes me extremely sad that, instead of renouncing meat from every human’s diet, ‘rabbits’ are being eyed as possible substitute for pork meat due to the increasing number of pigs afflicted by the recent ‘African Swine Flu (ASF)’ here in the country. I mean, why not soy protein instead of another animal to resolve the crisis? Aside from soy protein/faux meat is cruelty-free, it’s not carcinogenic. Why do we always have to resort to killing another delicate animal such as rabbit just to satisfy our taste buds? Let's bear in mind, your happiness is their torture.
A lot of people nowadays are going ‘vegetarian’ by going dairy-free or by not eating pork yet eat chicken, by not eating pork & chicken but eat fish. Why not go vegan instead and ditch the dairy and totally stop consuming these innocent animals instead and go for plant-based foods aside from they’re guilt-free to consume, our stomach will just digest them and our body will excrete them anyway? Let’s co-exist peaceful with every living being in our planet, big or small. Plants don’t feel pain and scream in pain. How would you feel when death’s door is right in front of you what more see the rest of your kind die a painful death right your very eyes? Watch any documentary shot in ‘slaughterhouses’ and tell me if seeing these poor animals will not jar your conscience and sanity.
