LETTER | The West must stop the blame game, focus on the pandemic

LETTER | In an interview with the National Geographic posted on 4 May 2020, the director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and probably the most famous doctor in the world today, Anthony Fauci, who has also advised six US presidents including Donald Trump, stated clearly that the coronavirus evolved from nature and challenged the view that it was created at a lab in Wuhan as alleged earlier by some politicians and media people.

This was the same position given by the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on April 30, 2020, that it “concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the Covid-19 virus was not man-made or genetically modified”.

Even US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo when talking on ABC TV with Martha Raddatz on May 3, 2020, agreed with the office of the DNI.

A report by CNN on May 6, 2020, states: “A new genetic analysis of the virus that caused Covid-19 taken from more than 7,600 patients around the world shows it has been circulating in people since late last year…”

On the same date, CNN reported that doctors in Paris have discovered that a patient by the name of Amirouche Hammar (who also gave a public interview) who was treated in December 2019 for the flu, in fact, had, Covid-19. There are also reports of such stories in the US that many flu patients in 2019 were not correctly diagnosed and were suffering from Covid-19.

On Dec 31, 2019, China reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO) about a cluster of cases of pneumonia of “unknown cause” in Wuhan. The culprit, a novel coronavirus, was identified by China on Jan 7, 2020.

The most important timeline of all is Jan 12, 2020, when China openly and quickly shared, once it unravelled it, the genetic sequence of the novel coronavirus to the whole world so that scientists around the world could start working on vaccines to stop the pandemic.

On Jan 23, 2020, the entire city of Wuhan with 11 million people, the epicentre of the outbreak in China, was put under a complete lockdown to prevent the spread of Covid-19 to the rest of China and the world. This was also to buy time for the other countries to prepare and get their act together. On Jan 30, 2020, the World Health Organization declared a “public health emergency of international concern.”

Finding a scapegoat

Instead, some countries in the West wasted valuable time and opportunity in February and March 2020 and did nothing or little to prepare for the pandemic, as stated by Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the highly respected medical journal, The Lancet. Yet, these leaders now have the audacity to blame China for it.

There must be no more time-wasting, energy and resource wasting and divisive blame game used by some politicians and media in the US and elsewhere. It is patently obvious that they are trying to find a convenient scapegoat to blame and more importantly, to distract and divert attention from their failures in controlling and handling the Covid-19 pandemic in their backyards.

All countries must focus on addressing the pandemic in their territories by social distancing and if necessary, via isolation or quarantine, border control, cultivating hygienic habits such frequent hand wash and not touching the face, undertaking reliable testing and contact tracing and caring for and treating infected patients.

All countries must also do their best to collaborate and help each other out and via the WHO, on information and technology sharing, testing, medical equipment and expertise needed, anti-viral treatments and vaccine developments.

The worst of humanity

The wearing of a face mask in public places was a classic case of how some politicians in the West were playing geopolitics with the lives of their people. Until recently, such politicians and officials with the support of some media simply refused to follow the example set by East Asian countries, which based on their experience of the Sars outbreak of 2003, have been wisely practising the wearing of face masks in public places to control the spread.

The dishonest and contradictory statements by these politicians and some officials on discouraging people to wear face masks in public places have been largely responsible for the rapid spread and high death rates of Covid-19 in their countries. This was a disgraceful public health scandal in the West.

It is often in a crisis that you can see the worst of humanity. The refusal of some politicians and government officials (with the support of some media) in some Western countries to ask their people to wear face masks in public places was largely clouded by their racist prejudice against Asians and their agenda to blame China (seen as much of Asia) for the pandemic.

They cannot, on one hand, follow, praise or support East Asian countries for a good practice (of wearing face masks) to control the spread while on the other hand, blame a major East Asian country (China) for causing the pandemic. It is very confusing. Perpetuating racism or the blame game has to be very simple to be effective.

Although many Asians in the West have been assaulted and racially abused for wearing a face mask, this is probably the first time in history where racism perpetuated by the white supremacists are causing mostly white people to suffer as victims and be put in harm’s way (by not wearing a mask and getting infected with Covid-19 and spreading to others). You reap what you sow.

The moral of the story is that racism, which often clouds sensible judgements, can harm the very people that it sets out to promote over others.

Therefore, in our 21st Century and beyond, all races must oppose racism for their interest and survival. All the races of the world must instead, work together in an equitable and just manner to ensure the survival and progress of mankind.

COVID RESEARCH CENTRE is a non-profit research unit under the Asian Heritage Museum Group.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.