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Cars lined up this week at the main entrance to the Baishazhou wet market, one of the biggest in Wuhan, which is buzzing again. The Chinese city where the coronavirus first emerged has stirred back to life following a lockdown lasting for months.

A sign hovers overhead: “No slaughtering and selling live animals.”

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tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Wuhan is returning to life. So are its disputed wet markets Back to video

Baishazhou and other wet markets are at the center of an intensifying global debate about whether they should be allowed to operate, as another market in Wuhan was one of the first places where the virus was detected. U.S. officials, in particular, are ramping up pressure to shut them down. Yet such markets in China and elsewhere in Asia are as essential a part of everyday life as bodegas in the New York City or boulangeries in Paris.

The challenge facing Beijing’s central government as Wuhan and the rest of the country seeks to return to normal life will be how to keep open such markets — which function like a farmers’ market in Western countries — while enforcing rules against the live slaughter of animals or sale of wildlife on site.