Nearly a year ago, somewhere in China, a previously unknown virus made its way from a wild animal into a human host. There it found not only a hospitable home, but also an opportunity to spread trillions of copies of itself, eventually replicating to become the global Covid-19 pandemic.

That outbreak, now having infected more than 46 million people around the world, has been the impetus for a series of actions taken by the Chinese government to — in theory — get a handle on zoonotic disease outbreaks now and in the future.

A first step, taken in February and later solidified through regulations, largely banned commercial breeding of terrestrial wildlife for meat consumption as part of a series of actions meant to reduce those risks.

Also forthcoming: an updated version of the country’s Wildlife Protection Law, an amended Animal Epidemic Prevention Law and a new Biosecurity Law. These efforts are all part of a raft of measures China’s leadership is in the process of rolling out to address the potential for zoonotic diseases moving from animals humans. The hope is that these frameworks will help reduce the possibility of future pandemics like Covid-19.

The picture on the ground, however, presents mixed signals. Some progress has been made in shutting off much of the formerly robust wildlife trade related to meat consumption. But virtually nothing has been done to address potential threats from fur farms and operations raising wildlife for use in Chinese pharmaceuticals, leaving open the potential for fur and pharmaceutical operations to be a future source of zoonotic diseases like Covid-19. It also increases the potential for these industries to serve as a hub for illicit wildlife trade.

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