China must pay up.

Huge portions of the population around the world are laid off work, off school, all leisure activities stopped. The virus has affected every walk of life from all sports, leisure, retail, banking, hospitality, transport, travel & tourism, agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare to name a few. Billions of people have been directly or indirectly affected on a personal level. For the foreseeable future we are separated from family and friends. Holidays got cancelled, weddings curtailed or limited to the tiniest of numbers and most tragically so many lived lost but with funerals so restricted that many loved ones cannot pay their last respects and the ones attending cannot even console one another. So many ‘once in a lifetime’ events ruined which will have mental health implications for the rest of their lives.

No surprise that the virus was created from a wet market, this time in Wuhan. It was an accident….but nevertheless an accident waiting to happen AGAIN.

We need changes and certainty that these practices will end to ensure we are not just a few years away from the next pandemic. China bids for huge contracts all the time, recent examples like HS2 and 5G but that should be completely out of the question until certain things are agreed.

Many countries around the globe have lost billions or trillions off their economies. China is now the second largest economy on the planet largely due to trade with all the countries affected. I think this global superpower of industry and manufacturing should recompense each country affected. If it drops down to 20th in the world well so be it; they caused it so why should the rest of the world have to pay for it? It was they who knew about it first but allowed flights to continue in and out all over the world, plus the WHO should also be examined about their responses early on.

Numerous countries could be looking at decades of unprecedented economic hardship off the back of this. Financial experts say markets will take years to get back and we will all be hit by additional tax rises as the governments try to repay the humungous debts they have incurred tackling the virus. China should be ashamed of what it has caused and should not expect favour and trade from countries who have suffered huge deaths, illness and poverty thanks to them

I am aware of the hypocrisy. Most of the world rushed to China because of its very cheap, efficient and plentiful workforce. The biggest companies on earth all have vested interests in Asia; they produced good quality products cheaply, which can be sold expensively! We are guilty of exploiting them and we turn a blind eye to their human rights abuses, health & safety shortfalls their carbon smog filed cities from spewing factories. Alternatively we simply start manufacturing and producing our own goods once again.

China needs to apologize, ban wet markets and pay country’s governments what this virus has cost.