Journalist goes undercover at "wet markets", where the Coronavirus started | 60 Minutes Austra

Predictions about the catastrophe that is the

coronavirus

grow more sinister every day that the World Health Organization says it poses a greater global threat than terrorism. That's bad enough, but what the expert you're about to meet with says is even scarier. According to Professor Gabriel Lyon. With 60% of the world's population potentially infected with the virus and up to 45 million of us potentially dying now, it would be easy to dismiss the professor as an alarmist, except that he is the man who led the fight against SARS. virus, he knows what he's talking about, we ignore it at our own peril, it's not a question of if the streets of Australia will look like this, but when they will look like this, it doesn't seem like any country has been completely successful in containing it 100 % and return it to nature.

Such is life for the 7 million Hong Kong residents caught in the crosshairs of the

coronavirus

. It scares me, but I think a little anxiety will give them that extra motivation to take precautions in a world

where

people only venture out with masks.

where

almost all public places are deserted for fear of infection where businesses are deserted and economic

markets

are in panic and this may just be the beginning now there is an emergency and what we must do is very rigorous infection control this is the new normal of possibly the biggest pandemic the world has ever seen, if coronavirus is disease the entire region from time to time and somehow the virus almost certainly crossed over to humans in the so-called wet

markets

, these are places throughout Asia, but particularly in China, where wild animals are slaughtered on site and sold as food.

I think this is Mother Nature's revenge. Steven Gayle Stirrer is an environmental and human rights researcher who has been campaigning for years against Asia's wet markets, governments across the region claim they have closed them due to the corona virus pandemic, but here in Bangkok, as You see, we are about to go

undercover

to prove that this is simply false. Steven is fighting the corona virus in It is very important to contain, delay research and then mitigate as this man leads the scientific fight against the pandemic at World Health Organization emergency meetings around the world, one and a half percent of that group of one hundred people have asymptomatically shed a Live virus professor Gabriel la Tierra is considered the world's leading expert on corona viruses based in Hong Kong.

He led the global fight against SARS. At first we heard rumors about a mysterious new atypical pneumonia brewing on the continent. Was there much fraud in those days? was there, of course, of course, it was very scary. There is no end in sight to the SARS crisis. The death toll continues to rise in November 2002. SARS swept through 17 countries, infecting more than 8,000 people and killing nearly 800. Experts say this is just a hint of what this latest corona virus could do. doing so, it is certainly more infectious and it is also very difficult to try to control it, and the coronavirus or covert 19, as the disease is now called, spreads much more quickly than uncontrolled SARS, as countries like China and South Korea have discovered the infection rate becomes exponential.

The big question now is really how big the iceberg is, so it is assumed that there could be many more people. I don't know, but I suspect that the coronavirus has already affected more than 80 countries and counting Professor Liang's prediction. because the final extent of the pandemic is chilling because of everything you have learned in recent weeks and months what is your best estimate of how many people around the world could be affected by this virus you do not know that everyone is susceptible and if you assume that everyone mix randomly with each other, eventually you will see 40 50 60% of the population become infected at current mortality rates, that level of infection would mean between 45 and 60 million deaths worldwide and that is just in the first wave of the virus despite that.

The desperate and draconian lockdown measures being used in China are the second wave worse than the first. Do you think I don't know? But we have to prepare for the possibility of a second wave as a person and as a scientist. Does this virus scare you every time? Every time I know I'm involved in an epidemic, it scares me, as Australia prepares to be hit by the first wave of coronavirus. It is worth watching the effect it has had on infected cities like Hong Kong, so close to the epicenter of the outbreak. I can tell you that in all the years I have been coming here, this is not normal, it is one of the busiest shopping streets in Hong Kong and at this time of day it is always packed, shoulder to shoulder, with tourists and shoppers, but this is product of what public health officials call social distancing, if you don't have to be on the street, if you don't have a good reason, most of these people go to the subway at both ends, then just stay home throughout Hong Kong , the impacts of this city fighting its deadly invisible enemy are everywhere, shopping malls, deserted amusement parks, closed or attended by the very few mandatory temperature checks before entering restaurants, they do this to everyone customers. 30 born at 7 degrees and once inside perspex screens to protect customers on the streets, the elderly queue for free deliveries of masks and hand sanitizer, most stores sell little else and where people Forced to congregate like in the subway system, everyone wears a mask, Hong Kong people have accepted the new world.

Coronavirus don't really have much choice, but here's the reality, if you're around, it's been weeks since the outbreak

started

across the border in China, the question is whether Australians are ready and willing to take the extreme measures necessary. To avoid infection with so many people here on the streets wearing masks, can you see the same kind of culture developing on the streets of Australia? Hong Kong has experienced SARS and one of the first things they did was go out and buy masks. there has been a shortage of them for a month since Tom Grundy is editor of the Hong Kong Free Press and a long-time resident who doubts whether the populations of Australia and other Western countries will respond to the coronavirus in the unified way that people here have the course but people are very disciplined to keep this virus under control God knows how you know that other perhaps less disciplined places that have not experienced something like this are going to disappear, but according to Tom, there is a much darker dimension to the outbreak of corona virus, says there is deep suspicion. here that one of the main reasons it became a pandemic is a massive state cover-up ordered by China's President Xi Jinping, including the arrest of the whistleblowing doctor who later died.

This is the G Jinping virus, not the cause, but certainly the extent of the outbreak is due to Due to authoritarianism and lack of press freedom on the mainland, there was no mechanism for anyone to raise the alarm about this. The only doctor you know who tried to do it in the early days and eventually succumbed to the disease was detained and told to shut up. Public health crises and closed, secretive governments don't really go together, do they? They've even admitted that you know they've changed the way they collect data a couple of times, so it's very difficult do you believe the death numbers that they have?

We're reporting a record, there's a lot of pressure in China to get things back to normal, the economy is suffering, so I think it would be reasonable to think there's some nonsense with the numbers, but you know, it's a problem. We are in uncharted territory. One measure of China's influence is the pressure it has put on the World Health Organization not to officially call the corona virus outbreak a pandemic, but on that front the man at the center is the blood. why is there a blockage? With that, why was the WHO reluctant to call it a pandemic?

Well, technically I suspect it may be because colleagues may think that if they use the word pandemic then it would cause panic and panic is not good for any kind of outbreak control. How was this virus born? What was the mechanism that generated it? You are probably not a jump from a small mammal probably raised or captured at least for food consumption. The reservoir appears to be emerging. Undercover penguins have been high. on the menu for a while in an illegal wildlife market, the biggest risk during the handling process is here where the coronavirus was born that jumps from an animal to a person, that's the lesson here, the next one in 60

minutes

, by which will work well when you turn your head.

You'll be able to film Steve and me. I'm with Steven Gal Stirrer and an environmental and human rights researcher based in Thailand, where we have the lenses in our backpack. We are preparing for a covert operation using secrets. cameras, so this should work pretty well for us, this is all hidden here, our target is an illegal wildlife market in Bangkok, places like this and the so-called wet markets where wild animals are sold as food. The coronavirus first jumped from animals to humans, so in viral terms these things are really living petri dishes, right? Yes, there are sleeping time bombs across the region right now, stopping the zoonotic jump at its source is of course critical in Hong Kong, Professor Gabriel, the land is at the center of the scientific fight against coronavirus.

The fight that

started

at a wildlife market in Wuhan, China, is the virus transmitted to humans through people eating these animals or simply handling them? Probably the biggest risk during the handling process is when the animals are under stress, therefore the immune system is depressed, and then during handling. Experts aren't sure, but the suspicion is that in Wuhan the coronavirus jumped to humans from the most trafficked wild animal in the world, pangolins. Pangolins had been at the top of the list. menu for a while whatever it was it was an animal it jumped from an animal to a person it's a wild animal that has been taken from its natural environment consumed somehow it came into contact with people in an unnatural way that's the lesson here TRUE?

It is baffling that a grandparent could die in a Sydney nursing home from an animal that was sold at a market in China. Yes, no, it's incredible. I must say that we are not surprised because we have been working on this for years we have been trying to warn people that they know that this is global. We're walking into the heart of Bangkok's Chatuchak cement market to see how seriously Thailand's authorities are taking the threat that the coronavirus has so dramatically exposed here in hot, squalid, crowded conditions with wild animals smuggled in from all over the world. parts of the world I think in this place there is a torture chamber and a dirty laboratory, everything from AIDS to SARS and now the pandemic affecting more than 80 countries around the world most of the new diseases that infect the humanity are caused by a virus that started in a wild animal and was left to humans in environments like this, they have all been taken from their natural environment, brought thousands of miles, in some cases, here and in contaminated conditions, bringing with them God knows what, literally thousands. of people here today in the perfect past for Wuhan to happen here again as part of their desperate efforts to contain the corona virus.

China closed more than 20,000 wet markets, but wildlife markets like this one still operate with impunity across Asia run by organized crime syndicates. Their unions we know who they are, we've been following them for years and they're still out there and they're not going to go out of business today because China, you know, shut down Wuhan, these are like drug dealers, you know, you make it difficult. to sell drugs in one neighborhood they will move to another huddled in their cages and glass boxes, there is everything from Australian cockatoos to blue-tongued lizards to African meerkats European ferrets tortoises and rare snakes these animals are never together in the wild and therefore that they are vulnerable to viruses that transmit to each other in these terrible conditions, those viruses can pass to the humans who handle them, the next global pandemic could easily start in one of these cages, so why are they selling that iguana It's for meat, so you can do whatever?

If you want it, it will cost around 150 US dollars and then, deep in the market, a single store that should rightly terrify a world reeling from the coronavirus, an African serval cat, a Saharan fennec fox and marmosets from South America. This is just amazing, you know? African cats, you have monkeys, primates in the same confined space. Does no one tell themHas the diptych told these people that this is where the other viruses come from? Well, we have done it and we have told you that this is Wuhan number two in the making, which is why we asked you. shutting it down because it's a recipe for disaster, everyone inside this hot little room ready to inspect someone is incredible.

I've seen it all now, yes, so if you want to stop the next pandemic it will have to be a truly global attempt to shut it down. these markets are falling, yes, I mean, look, the corona virus is spreading around the world, which should tell us that not only should we close the markets in China, but we should also close them in Thailand, Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia , Burma and perhaps other countries as well. will expand or repeat if our response to the coronavirus catastrophe is global and it has to be, then surely our response to the deadly threat posed at the very source of these viruses must be equally global.

This trade, as global,

goes

everywhere and is bad. A virus that jumps from an animal could come back to my country or any other country and I hate to say it, but I think the penguin in this case is the most trafficked mammal in the world whose only defense is curling up in a ball has decided that conservationists will not They were doing enough He struck back at himself I think this is Mother Nature's revenge coming, give her everything you've got, fill it all up, are you ready? We have a health challenge for the fight of your life every day.

We expect to see 80 to 100 cases. What Australians need to do designed our ICU with a pandemic mode to be the corona virus. If you're very lucky, you may even be able to contain it. Then, within 60

minutes

, you have coronavirus symptoms. Your friends, family, or coworkers may have already been infected. Whether you live or die depends on two things: how Australia's health authorities and hospitals deal with this pandemic, but mainly how old you are, we will be especially worried. Frail elderly patients who became ill with respiratory failure due to this infection. Associate Professor Chris MacIsaac is director of intensive care at the Royal Melbourne Hospital as the coronavirus gains steam in Australia.

He and his staff are at the highest alert level in modern history. We have a 42-bed ICU. I think if we had to provide intensive care to more than that number, it wouldn't be business as usual. What do we know about the type of people who are being killed by this forest, each of whom has a primary determinant, age, the elderly? Yes, in Hong Kong, Professor Gabriel. Leone is one of the world's scientific leaders in the fight against coronavirus and says that if people infected with the virus are 20 times more likely to die from it than those under 65, let us pray that we do not see an asylum of elderly or a nursing home. having the same experience because the results could be absolutely terrible tragic news this morning when a 95 year old woman who lived in an aged care facility here lost her life to coronavirus in Australia the cases are coming and as Professor Liang has already been witnessed in In other countries, fear is what starts with a few cases that quickly become hundreds and then local epidemics venture into uncharted territory.

Now is the time to go all out. Put everything you have to fight it. We have to give it everything. government approach, give it your all, throw it all in fast, early and hard, that will buy you enough time and if you are very lucky, you might even contain it if you are very lucky, if you are very lucky, We were really lucky to have designed our ICU with a pandemic mode. We have never needed to activate that mode, but it is tested periodically and is ready to go in case we have an influx of patients like in hospitals across Australia Chris MacIsaac and his head of intensive care.

Royal Melbourne staff are preparing their emergency response to the pandemic for when coronavirus hits hard, so when we hit the entire pod area, there's a proper anteroom, all the doors close automatically, and there's actually a airlock indicator at three points, yes, and that's ready to go, we don't know where the particular cases are going to emerge, so it's important that all hospitals have their pandemic plans activated. Professor Kirstie Abusing is the director of Victoria's infectious diseases service, they've got someone there, they've just arrived. from Iran and yesterday they had a plane full, you know they're a fair fight and they're hypoxic.

This will require a community response. Everyone must understand that we are facing a health challenge, but it is a health challenge. I believe together we can overcome and help limit the impact, but with Australia's coronavirus death toll clear and around 80 confirmed cases, Professor Leung warns there must be dozens, possibly hundreds, more cases yet to be confirmed. detected for every death, you would expect to see between eighty and one hundred cases, so if you start seeing deaths before you start detecting a large number of cases, the only conclusion that can be reasonably and scientifically drawn is that there were no conducted tests early enough or extensive enough.

Unless you go and get tested, you won't find that we are looking at scenarios from the most benign to millions of people infected over a period of several weeks, with the worst case scenario being millions infected in Australia. The risk is that our health system becomes dangerously overloaded, but at least according to Professor Liang, we are better able to overcome this pandemic than many other countries in the world if we have millions, tens of millions or hundreds of millions of people. who could actually be infected I fear this will lead to another massive example of health inequity because this disease is really only treatable if you have ICU beds, if you have ventilators, if you have good availability of medications to tie people down. when they get very sick, in other words, you're saying that the people who will survive are only those who can afford it in health systems that can afford it.

Hi, I'm Sarah. Thanks for watching to stay up to date with the latest news from 60 Minutes Australia. Make sure to subscribe to our channel. You can also download the 9 Now app to watch full episodes and other exclusive 60 Minutes content.