The world is on high alert over the potentially deadly Coronavirus that allegedly originated at a seafood market in Wuhan, China. So far, thousands have been infected with the virus and it has reportedly killed 100 people so far. The virus that originally spread from animals to humans, is now spreading from humans to humans. Health officials are warning people to skip any non-essential travel to China, where major cities with millions of residents are on lockdown, while airports across the world are screening passengers for the potentially deadly virus.

The Daily Mail is reporting about a Chinese food market at the center of the deadly SARS-like virus outbreak where it is being claimed that they were selling live koalas, snakes, rats and wolf pups for locals to cook and eat.

The Huanan Seafood Market in the central city of Wuhan in China came under scrutiny on Wednesday after Chinese officials said the coronavirus may have originated in a wild animal sold at the food emporium.

The market has since been closed and has been labeled ‘ground zero’ by local authorities.

The highly-contagious virus has killed 17 people and infected hundreds in China, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong, and the US.

A list of prices for one of the businesses operating at the market showed a menagerie of animals available for sale including live foxes, crocodiles, wolf puppies, giant salamanders, snakes, rats, peacocks, porcupines, koalas, and game meats, according to the South China Morning Post.

The food menu shows a price of 70 RMB for koala meat.

There are 112 live animals and animal products on the list.

‘Freshly slaughtered, frozen and delivered to your door,’ said the price list for the vendor called Wild Game Animal Husbandry for the Masses.

Gao Fu, director of the Chinese center for disease control and prevention, said in Beijing on Wednesday that authorities believe the virus likely came from ‘wild animals at the seafood market’ though the exact source remains undetermined.

Last week, The Sun reported that the coronavirus that’s killed at least 17 people in China could have spread to humans who’ve eaten bat soup sold at the Wuhan market.

The Sun reports – Bats have been identified as a possible carrier of coronavirus, which is understood to have originated at an open-air fish market in Wuhan.

The new highly-contagiously strain is beloved to have jumped from animals to people before mutating to spread among humans.

The video of Wang went viral amid claims it was filmed at a “Wuhan restaurant”. The city, where 11million people live has been on lockdown since last week.

But Wang claims the video was filmed three years ago in Palau, Micronesia where she was trying to “introduce the lifestyle of the local people”.

In an apology she made on China’s microblogging site Weibo she wrote: “Sorry everyone, I shouldn’t eat bats.”

She said she had received death threats since the video started circulating again and wanted to clear up that she didn’t know the animal was linked to coronavirus.

USA Today – Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe infections such as pneumonia; Middle East respiratory syndrome, known as MERS; and severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. Common signs of infection include fever, cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties. In more severe cases, infection can cause kidney failure or death.

The virus can spread from animals to people. It can be spread by coughing, sneezing and through close contact with an infected person or an object carrying the virus.

Coronaviruses, Ebola and SARS are zoonotic, meaning they are transmitted between animals and people. Ebola was carried by fruit bats, which spread it to other animals. SARS was transmitted from civet cats to humans and MERS from camels to humans.

The outbreak of coronavirus began in the city of Wuhan – which has since been put in lockdown after more than 600 people were infected globally.

Scientists in China yesterday claimed that the deadly strain shares a common ancestor with a virus found only in fruit bats.

According to Line Today – The coronavirus discovered in Wuhan may share the same bat-related ancestor as Sars, according to the latest study by Chinese scientists, which said the strain was weaker than the devastating 2002-03 Sars outbreak but was still “highly infectious”.

The new virus shares a common ancestor with severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), in HKU9-1, a virus found in fruit bats, they found.

The connection with wild animals was confirmed on Wednesday by Gao Fu, director general of China’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.

According to Gao, the coronavirus, which has sickened over 400 people across the country and led to nine deaths, originated from the wild animals sold at a seafood market in Wuhan. Gao warned that a major challenge was that the new strain was adapting and mutating.

Since then footage and images have been circulated purporting to show people eating the Chinese delicacy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXMEu_Jw2Yk

According to The Gateway Pundit

CNN is reporting that snakes may also be to blame for the outbreak.

Snakes — the Chinese krait and the Chinese cobra — may be the original source of the newly discovered coronavirus that has triggered an outbreak of a deadly infectious respiratory illness in China this winter.

The many-banded krait (Bungarus multicinctus), also known as the Taiwanese krait or the Chinese krait, is a highly venomous species of elapid snake found in much of central and southern China and Southeast Asia.

The illness was first reported in late December 2019 in Wuhan, a major city in central China, and has been rapidly spreading. Since then, sick travelers from Wuhan have infected people in China and other countries, including the United States.

USA Today reports – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday confirmed the first U.S. case of a new coronavirus. The CDC and Washington state officials said the man, a Snohomish County resident in his 30s, was in good condition at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett. The symptoms presented Sunday, and the diagnosis was confirmed Monday.

Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, called the news “concerning,” particularly in light of reports that the virus has begun to spread from person to person.

“The confirmation of human-to-human spread in Asia certainly increases our concern,” Messonnier said.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said Tuesday that he expected more cases in the U.S.

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