The Spectator USA recently published an article, "Time to ban wet markets".

It called for China to introduce higher food safety regulations, eradicate wet markets, and ban the wildlife trade -- admirable goals, if not for the fact that the author used an image of a Singapore wet market.

It appears that this was a deliberate choice.

After all, the author, U.S.-based Singaporean activist Melissa Chen, captioned the cover image, "A wet market in Singapore", and started the article with a graphic description of her memory of the wet market in Singapore's Chinatown Complex.

She described the wet market as a "veritable not-so-little shop of horrors", which assaults its visitors with a "fetid stench" and showers of blood, water and fish bits.

Chen then made the association leap to "wet markets, like the one in Wuhan that was ground zero for the Covid-19 pandemic", criticising them for their lax food safety and hygiene standards.

Keeping live and dead animals side by side in the wet market makes for an environment which cultivates viral pathogens, explained Chen.

Wet wildlife markets are "time bombs" which will set off another global pandemic, she said.

Responses

If you found it hard to square Singapore's wet markets with those described by Chen, you're not alone.

One news anchor called her piece "spectacularly misguided".

Even Singaporean blogger mrbrown chimed in:

When questioned by Twitter users, Chen pointed out that she never said anything about banning Singapore's wet markets.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Top images via Melissa Chen and screenshot of the Spectator USA article.