Brian May Blames Meat-Eating For Coronavirus And Urges People To Go Vegan

Queen guitarist Brian May has indicated meat-eating as the cause of coronavirus and cited that the pandemic will force people to re-evaluate their relationship with meat. 

The rockstar believes that veganism is the future of humanity after the world was “brought to its knees” by the ongoing crisis.  

In the interview for the NME, he said: “If you want to get deep into it, I think we should be looking again at whether we should be eating animals.

“This pandemic seemed to come from people eating animals and it’s becoming more well known that eating animals is not the greatest thing for our health.”

May has been a vegan since January and plans to be “a bit more preachy about veganism because it is the way forward”.

Commenting on his vegan lifestyle, he said: “I took up the Vegan Challenge in January and I’ve been three months a vegan now. To me, it was an experiment, because for a long time I’d been an animal campaigner but grappled with the fact that I was still eating them occasionally.

“But to go vegan was just a decision, and I haven’t been preachy about it, but now we’ve seen more of the effects of how eating animals has brought us to our knees as a species, I think it’s time to re-examine our world in a way that doesn’t abuse other species.”

He added: “Whether we will see that happen, I don’t know, but I think I will start to be a bit more preachy about veganism because to me it is the way forward, in so many ways.”

This comes after Paul McCartney called for the abolition of wet markets in China where live animals are kept, slaughtered and sold for meat and where scientists believe the virus originated.

McCartney described them as “medieval” and said: “I really hope that this will mean the Chinese government says, ‘OK guys, we have really got to get super hygienic around here.’ Let’s face it; it is a little bit medieval eating bats.  

“It seems like Sars, avian flu, all sorts of other stuff that has afflicted us… and what’s it for? For these quite medieval practices. They need to clean up their act. This may lead to [change]. If this doesn’t, I don’t know what will.”

Last week, May wrote on Instagram that humanity would learn “great lessons” from the pandemic.

Speaking to his fans during self-isolation he admitted to having “anger and blame” and “moments of wondering whether he will ever do that thing on stage again”. 

Still, he added: “I have to believe that some good things will come out of all this.”