AMJAD ZARIN
ORIGINATED from the Chinese city of Wuhan, in Hubei province, Coronavirus has so far killed over one hundred thousand people and over seventeen hundred thousands have been diagnosed with this virus across the world. More than one million people are under treatment in hospitals of over two hundred countries where more than fifty thousand patients are in critical condition. Though the mortality rate from the virus is not very high and about four hundred thousand patients have returned to their homes after recovery. The battle against Coronavirus has shifted from China to Europe and America. China defeated the virus with her matchless resolve and unprecedented sacrifices of the whole nation, particularly the residents of Wuhan city. Within a short span of three months, the virus spread all around the world due to its highly contagious characteristic.
It was indeed a golden opportunity for the world community to learn from the Chinese experience and take precautionary measures but not even a single country did that due to political reasons and ideological differences. When the fight was at its peak in Wuhan, the epicentre of COVID-19, China warned the world community and shared the information about the virus on time but unfortunately, the world misjudged the situation and thought it was only China’s concern and will be confined to her. This was a new virus which no one had ever seen or heard about before and that’s why the vaccine to treat it is not yet available. It was absolutely impossible that everything will be done right at the beginning to contain virus from spreading and China never claimed it but what they did were taking aggressive, rigorous and robust measures to contain it to its epicentre and let not it spread to other parts of the country or rest of the world. Though after over two months of lockdown China ends it by controlling the virus but still the government and people are vigilant about the sporadic, imported and asymptomatic cases.
During all this time the world and USA in particular took the issue too light while taunting China by calling it Chinese virus and use the issue for minor political interests. Despite WHO’s frequent warnings to the world regarding the seriousness of the issue, a huge number of countries ignored those and did not take any precautionary measures. As the pandemic spread globally, after that the world community realized its seriousness but still kept politicizing by associating it to China. Eventually all the misrepresentation that is coming out will fall away and people will eventually realize that China is the only country which has got the virus fully under control by adopting an effective mechanism and therefore that’s the country which you have to follow if you want to win the fight against Coronavirus.
As China emerges from over two month containment period successfully which is unprecedented in the history of epidemics and unprecedented in the annals of medical history. Its experience can help countries that currently are receiving a huge number of cases to plan their response better. As the virus continues to spread rapidly and is going to be the worst global catastrophe since World War-II, it’s the right time for global unity and for the fight together against this menace while forgetting the political differences for the time being. At present the outbreak in the United States and Western Europe is much more serious and deadly than the one in China at its peak time and for the six consecutive days, more than one thousand people losing their life within 24 hours time. Even this time many countries do not take the accurate measures and not making mask wearing a must for the people, they are allowing people to go out and if you do that then obviously the number of cases will continue to rise.
The fundamental thing that the United States and Europe have to understand is that they need to impose the strictest measures for controlling further spread of the virus. Gradually each country will be forced to move towards the type of measures which China have taken to contain it. The situation right now is too serious to engage in political or other types of attacking of countries or people. What the world needs to understand is to seek for China’s advice instead of the criticism which is appearing in the US and western media. China being a big manufacturing country in the world can help those countries enormously with medical supplies and training as it impossible to win the battle against the epidemic without solid coordinated efforts. So in every sense the world needs to join hands in the fight against the virus because instead of engaging in a blame game that might bring fruitful results to the world. The news media must also avoid politicizing and adding oil to the fire because it can play a vital role in promoting international cooperation to tackle the novel Coronavirus pandemic.
So far the worst affected countries are those which are well developed but are helpless despite high standard and modern healthcare system. If the virus spreads to poor and under-developed countries with same speed then world may witness even more bigger devastation. Similarly the strictest international sanctions on Iran making it even more difficult to fight against the outbreak as the country is unable to import any medical or protective gears from other countries. Therefore, its need of the hour that to save innocent people those sanctions must be lifted immediately. If the world does not want to be exploited by the virus and if it does not want to have more deaths then still there is time to stop politicizing this issue. There is no need to use COVID-19 for political point scoring and very small personal benefits on the basis of race, colour, ethnicity or nationality. The United States and China should join hands and the rest of the developed countries of the world should all come together to fight it as global unity and solidarity is the only key to win the battle against the deadly virus. If the world still keeps behaving in this manner, the dirty politics may win somehow but humanity will definitely lose.
—The author is presently pursuing doctoral degree at Communication University of China.
