How responsible is the Chinese Government for the turmoil being caused throughout the World by the Coronavirus? The latest figures suggest that 119,686 people across the World (11,329 of them in UK) have died as a result or in part because of CIVID-19.
There is surely now no doubt that Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei Province in Central China was the source of the contagion. Coronaviruses are zoonotic diseases, meaning they can jump from animals to humans. It seems that there, in its so-called wet market (photo), where all sorts of animals are in close proximity both dead and alive - the virus jumped from one species to another, perhaps a bat into another animal, and then into human beings.
Apparently, the Wuhan authorities were aware of this new virus from about 17th November 2019 but the World Health Organisation was not informed until 44 days later on 31st December when it was simply impossible to contain the news any further. Meanwhile it seems that laboratories were ordered to destroy evidence, doctors and scientists were silenced and throughout January 2020 the Chinese authorities denied that the virus was transmitted from one person to another.
On 7 January Professor Gabriel Leung, Chair of Public Health Medicine at the University of Hong Kong suggested that the number of people infected with Corona virus probably from the Wet Market in Wuhan (photo) could already be more than 30 times higher the official tally.
Because the Chinese Communist Party was pretending that there was little to be concerned about, Wuhan became a porous purveyor of the virus. The government only instituted a lockdown in Wuhan on January 23—seven weeks after the virus first appeared. As events here and in Italy, the United States, Spain, and France have shown, quite a lot can happen in a week, much less seven. By then, Mayor Zhou Xianwang admitted that more than 5 million had already left Wuhan (population 11 million normally).
The World Health Authority was not allowed to visit Wuhan throughout January. Many people, with good cause I reckon, now question the figures being put out by the Chinese Government. Most recently it has declared that the infection rate in China is now zero and or near that. Personally, I find that difficult to believe. The Shanghai laboratory which first published the DNA chain for Coronavirus has now been shut down. None of this looks good.
Meanwhile the Chinese Government is moving heaven and earth to shift blame in any way from itself. On 9th March Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the U.S. lacked transparency and accused American military members of bringing the coronavirus to Wuhan. Conveniently for this lie, in October last year, the World Military Games were held in the city and the United States sent a team. It came after U.S. National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien said the speed of China's reaction to the emergence of the coronavirus had probably cost the world two months when it could have been preparing for the outbreak.
Today an aggressive media and social media campaign denying Chinese Government responsibility – especially on its Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts - is in full swing on all fronts. We must not be taken in by a Chinese regime without scruples and doing all in its power to shift the blame for what has happened away from itself and onto other countries.
Personally, I want the Chinese authorities to be held to account. I don’t know quite how we would do that but it would be honest at least if they themselves accepted their responsibility for the Worldwide COVID-19 pandemic we are suffering right now.
Finally, the way the Chinese authorities have mishandled Coronavirus should disabuse us of any remaining belief that the Chinese regime could be a responsible World player. It is not, and it will not become one whilst the current autocratic and oppressive regime holds sway over the unfortunate 1.2 billion people who live there.