This article originally referred to the Coronavirus Covid-19 as Chinese Flu, not as a political statement but as a geographic indication of origin. The text has been edited to reflect the WHO designation of Covid-19 and colloquial use of Coronavirus.
Whether the Coronavirus that caused the pandemic was produced in the US Army Medical Command at Fort Detrick, Maryland and purposely planted in China or if it escaped from a laboratory in the secret Wuhan Biological Warfare facilities or if it naturally developed on its own – which for various reasons should be the most credible version – is, at this moment, irrelevant.
Covid-19 is here and what is important at this moment is how it will be contained. And if it is as serious as it is being “sold” to citizens, what sociopolitical changes can it imply? Most importantly, how the world will be the day after the crisis is over and at what cost will it take to get life back into the new normal. The day after, when people will be released from the “house arrest” we are now witnessing, will see people discovering that we are already living in a new sociopolitical context with new values and new rules governing economic relations.
Covid-19 is the catalyst that will change our sociopolitical system. Not ‘if’, but ‘when’ and ‘how’ will the world be after the pandemic is the question. How will the world look when the new normal is vaguely predictable and when a new ideology will prevail: “everything in moderation”. Utopic, yes, but it may work.
When, however, remains the unknown variable of the equation.
The baptism of a disease
Once again, as it is still not a criminal offence, I will not be politically correct and will keep calling things by their name. I know that some may disagree but sorry, this is my way.
Previous deadly pandemic like the “Spanish Flu” of 1918, the 1957 “Asian Flu”, “Hong Kong Flu” in 1968, and the “Russian Flu” in 1977 were named after their place of origin (edit: not so for the Spanish flu but perhaps worse so). Even as recently as in 2009 when the “Swine Flu” killed 18,000 people, nobody thought to name it “H1N1pdm09” to avoid being politically incorrect against pigs. To notice that when you go to the pharmacy to buy a pain killer, you ask for Aspirin or Tylenol, not for acetylsalicylic or acetaminophen despite the fact you’re not politically correct with science.
Let’s get rid of our hypocrisy for once and speak of the “Chinese Flu” not of “Covid-19”, anymore. The real name should be the “Red Chinese Flu” because the Communist secrecy of Beijing was responsible for allowing the problem to reach such huge dimensions. However, I will behave politically correct and will stay with what, sooner or later, will become the colloquial name of our days’ coronavirus grippe, the “Chinese Flu”.
The criminal manipulation
The truth is that if the community had been alerted with real and clear fact, and not with fake impressions, the various governments and citizens would have taken the necessary draconian measures as soon as the Coronavirus first appeared in Wuhan in December 2019. That China was hiding the truth for months consciously and endangered the health of the world community is deplorable, but human lives in Communism fall behind political expediencies.
The World Health Organization, however, is a different matter. If WHO had done its obvious duties on time, the worldwide human death toll would certainly be lower. The WHO purposely (?) missed doing the obvious right thing at the right time and the rapidly expanding disease got out of control.
And if the results of this misbehaviour do not constitute sufficient material to bring the matter to justice, what exactly does the International Court of Justice in The Hague actually stand for? Are they there just to hunt down a handful of miserable Republika Srpska officers who, by now, would be in their nineties if they’re still alive?
The responsibilities of the WHO
On December 31, 2019, Wuhan authorities announced that were treating several patients for pneumonia caused by an unknown virus of the corona family that was named COVID-19. One month later, on January 30, after several countries were infected, the WHO declared a “global health emergency”. The delay helped China to confuse the world in such a way that when WHO, under multilateral pressures, declared the pandemic on March 11, 2020, 71 days after the illness first appeared, was already placed out of context.
The confusion from the two-and-a-half-month delay with the subsequent uncoordinated reactions of governments and citizens resulted in the uncontrolled expansion of the disease worldwide. That’s when the Chinese problem became a world problem.
As for the infection itself, with the right manipulation by Chinese Communist apparatchiks, and of the world-wide “useful idiots”, instead of being colloquially named “the Chinese Flu”, the virus maintained its scientific name Covid-19; thereby disassociating the epidemic from its origins. Indeed, at this very moment, those who opt to use the term “Chinese Flu” are branded racists.
On February 7, Wuhan’s Dr Li Wenliang, the physician who warned that the unknown virus could expand rapidly and get out of control if not properly contained from the very beginning, was reprimanded, silenced, forced to revoke his statements, and was disgraced by local Communist officials. In this way, the Chinese government misled the world community together with the WHO as both had total knowledge of the real situation from the start.
One minor detail in all of this, the still-current-head of the WHO is Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. He was the former Minister of Health of Ethiopia from 2005-2012 and Minister of Foreign Affairs 2012-2016 who became Director-General of the WHO with the strong support of China in 2017.
Ethiopia, by the way, is the number one satellite of Beijing, worldwide…
See the series of Coronavirus columns here.
