The ad for an Australian company in which a man eats a bat sandwich and jokes that it was this food practice that gave rise to the coronavirus pandemic
is destined to
further aggravate relations between Australia and China
.
The
Australian advertising authority has opened an investigation into the
spot, which has had
over 200,000 views on Youtube
.
Boating Camping Fishing, a company that sells fishing and leisure equipment, defended the idea by calling it ironic.
"Of course we realize the gravity of the situation but we have always made irreverent advertisements with the intention of making people smile," a spokesman explained to the BBC.
It is not the first time
that a Boating Camping Fishing campaign has been targeted by the Authority.
In 2016 and 2018, two of their advertisements were named the most criticized of the year.
There
has been much discussion on the
origin of Covid-19
from bats, especially at the beginning of the epidemic in China, when the first cases of coronavirus were linked to the Wuhan wildlife market.
However the exact origin of the virus has not yet been determined.
