This is a live animal market in Queens. There are about 70 such establishments in New York City’s bustling neighborhoods, some disturbingly close to schools and residential buildings. Most markets butcher and sell chickens, ducks and quail. About one in four also slaughters larger animals, like sheep, goats, cows and pigs.
As bird flu spreads to every corner of the globe, so-called wet markets like these are worrying public health experts. They are the petri dishes in which the next pandemic virus might emerge, jumping from bird to bird, or to other animals held just a few feet away, until finally adapting to humans.
A leading theory suggests that the coronavirus pandemic began in a live animal market in Wuhan, China. If a similarly contagious virus were to evolve in a New York wet market, some experts fear there would be little to stop it from marching rapidly through the city. Tourists from all over the world might carry it back to their homes.
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