Does the Coronavirus Pandemic Fall in the Hands of People from China?
Introduction
Coronavirus disease is a respiratory disease that spreads from one person to another, and it is caused by a novel (new) coronavirus. The disease was named “coronavirus disease 2019” which is abbreviated as COVID- 19. The disease is a new strain of the disease that had not been previously found in human beings. COVID-19 is closely linked genetically to the SARS-CoV-1 virus, which had emerged from China in the year 2002, causing more than 8000 cases in reported 33 nations in 8 months. COVID-19 can be mild or severe, depending on the age of the victim. Severe illness occurs in adults with more than 65 years and other people with underlying medical conditions like diabetics or other chronic problems (EBSCO, np). Affected people experience respiratory difficulties, fever, tiredness, and dry cough. To stop the spread of the disease, the population is encouraged to was hands regularly and sanitize their hands using an alcohol sanitizer. COVID-19 is believed to have originated and started from China in December 2019. Specifically, the disease came from the Wuhan animal market, where patient zero is believed to have consumed bats soup (Lacoviello & Marshall, np). However, several controversial theories are surrounding the origin of COVID-19. This paper’s thesis will be to investigate if the Coronavirus pandemic entirely falls in the hands of people from China.
According to a report released by WHO in February 2020, the first case of COVID-19 was taken from a patient with Pneumonia of etiology, which is unknown in Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital and tested positive for Betacoronavirus. (WHO, np). Further analysis indicated that the virus had features of the typical coronavirus belonging to the Betacoronavirus 2B lineage. Based on the National Reporting System (NRS) in China, by April 20, a total of 75, 465 cases had been reported in total. The major question which determines if the coronavirus pandemic falls in the hands of the China people is through finding out the actions which the Chinese government after the outbreak of the disease to curb its spread.
According to reports from doctors in Wuhan, strange Pneumonia like symptoms began to be noted in mid-November (Lacoviello & Marshall, np). However, the local authorities in Wuhan were reluctant to tell the Chinese people the entire truth about the strange symptoms. However, when the cases increased significantly, the Wuhan local authorities reported this alarming disease to the national government, which kept the whole truth from the Chinese population due to economic impacts. The Wuhan authorities were then barred from giving out any reports concerning the disease to the population. These actions provide enough evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic falls entirely on the Chinese people. Researchers indicate that if early steps were taken to combat the disease when the early cases were reported in Wuhan, then the disease would not have spread to other parts of China and the entire world. What is alarming is that the whistleblower doctor Li Wenliang became a prime suspected and a wanted man by the police for warning the public about the deadly disease. The Chinese police targeted Li and accused him of spreading rumors. Doctor Li, who had contracted the disease, warned his fellow citizens of a flu-like illness and urged his co-workers to wear protective gear to protect themselves. Despite his claims being true, he was criticized by the government for telling lies to the public in December 2019. This information indicates that the Chinese government was hiding the truth from the world and the people instead of warning the public and taking the necessary precaution in time. This, therefore, implies that the coronavirus pandemic falls to the Chinese government since it failed to take the needed precautions in time to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Doctor Li later died in the December 2019 (Graham and McCurry, np).
After the 2003 SARS pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) came up with standards of detecting responding and reporting of pandemic outbreaks (EBSCO b, np). According to the framework set, pandemics (which are large scale outbreaks of highly infectious diseases which can highly increase the mortality and morbidity of a large geographic area and lead to huge economic impacts and social disruption) have to be communicated swiftly to the public and the international community for preparedness to establish mitigation strategies. However, China violated the WHO laid down the framework to deal with pandemic through hiding the truth about COVID-19 to the entire world. Even today the entire world feels that China has not yet disclosed the whole truth about COVID-19. Violating the WHO set the framework to deal with Pandemics, China, as the source of COVID-19 implies that the pandemic falls in the hands of Chinese people.
According to the Chinese citizens, the aggressive quarantining strategy adopted by the government later and mass surveillance adopted has greatly helped in lowering the number of cases of COVID-19 in China (EBSCO, b, np). However, the Chinese people feel fault and criticize the government for discouraging transparency and their low response to the outbreak of the disease in Wuhan (Kuo, np). The people of China feel that if the government had acted in speed and take the precaution and prevention measures, the disease would not have spread at a high rate to other Chinese provinces and the world. This information from the Chinese citizens blaming its government for low response to the COVID-19 outbreak is overwhelming, making the pandemic fall in the hands of the Chinese government. According to Kuo, the Chinese government began to take measures and alerting the world about the deadly disease in late January 2020, bearing in mind that the disease was reported in mid-December. During that time between December 15, 2019, to late January 2020, the highly contagious disease had spread to all parts of China and nations around the globe. This means that the coronavirus pandemic hugely falls in the hands of the Chinese people and government.
However, some arguments point out that WHO became China’s COVID-19 accomplice. This means that WHO played a notable role in helping China cover up the truth concerning coronavirus. Critics argue that WHO played a part in delaying international response to COVID-19. Experts argue that experts from other parts of the world were denied entrance in the country until WHO Director-General Mr. Adhanom visited president Xi Jinping at the end of January. However, before then, WHO is accused of repeating the same information which was released by the Chinese authorities ignoring reports and warnings from doctors based in Taiwan who did not represent WHO but the United Nations (UN) to declare “a public health emergency” to the international community. It was only after the meeting took place that a public health emergency was announced as an international concern. This implies that China was hiding crucial details about COVID-19 and there is a high probability that the president Xi Jinping had to be coerced to give full disclosure about the disease so that the other nations could be sent a warning. This implies that the WHO had to visit China to get full disclosure of the entire situation of the coronavirus to declare a world health emergency. Also, EBSCO got more information about COVID-19 to inform the public in late January 2020, as indicated by EBSCO, b. np. The above evidence suggests that WHO entertained China as the source of COVID-19, letting the entire situation get out of control as the international body entrusted with offering guidelines during an outbreak of pandemics, WHO did not act in time. This is also evident by the fact that WHO declared coronavirus a pandemic on March 11 after the disease had already spread globally two weeks earlier (Drentrup, np).
There are other debates also which provide evidence that the coronavirus pandemic falls in the hands of the Chinese people. One of the debates is that seized by U.S president Donald Trump that points out that the origin of coronavirus was not from the outdoor markets has it was reported by the Chinese authorities. President Donald Trump argues that the novel coronavirus entirely falls in the hands of the Chinese people since it originated from Chinese Wuhan laboratories. The narrative argues that the virus escaped from the Wuhan lab to the city where the disease was first reported at the end of 2019. This debate, which is based on U.S intelligence, which is one of the best in the world, remains undisputed and implies that the virus falls in the hands of the Chinese people. According to the intelligence reports, researchers from the purported Wuhan lab were studying the dangerous coronavirus found in, but still, they failed to observe rigorous safety procedures in the facility, which made the virus escape from the lab to Wuhan city.
In attempts to cover the incidence, the Chinese government blamed the nearby seafood market for launching the coronavirus pandemic. It refused to permit independent investigators to dig deep into the matter. This debate has truth in it since the Chinese government did not allow any independent investigators from outside the world until the end of January 2020. This evidence also implies that the Chinese government was hiding the entire truth about the virus to ease their blame from the pandemic. Therefore there is no doubt that the coronavirus pandemic falls entirely in the hands of the Chinese people. As a result, the American president is always not afraid of calling COVID-19 the “Chinese virus.”
According to the “China hawks”, the coronavirus pandemic originated from the Wuhan labs. This is also supported by EBSCO, findings based on their healthy blog (Lacoviello & Marshall, np). This debate further points out that the COVID-19 pandemic was the Chinese Communist Party “biological Chernobyl.” This argument is fueled by the fact that the Chinese government officials have failed to let the other scientist in the world investigate the origin of the virus and how it exactly began to spread. Moreover, China is yet to share in detail any clinical epidemiological data concerning the coronavirus information that can help other countries in the world determine the best ways to treat patients affected and how to slow the spreading of the disease. This is despite China being very successful in containing the disease in terms of preventing its spread from one person to the other and treating the affected people by the disease. This evidence implies that China has a lot of information concerning the virus. Therefore, with no doubt, the coronavirus pandemic falls in the hands of the Chinese people.
Another debate disputes the claims that coronavirus was developed by the Chinese government as a bioweapon. Experts and scientists believe that the coronavirus was not a product of human engineering (live mint, np). This is despite the controversy which believes that the COVID-19 pandemic was a biological weapon introduced in China to destabilize the nation’s population of more than 1.3 billion people. However, after genetic evaluation of the virus, scientists pointed out that coronavirus is not human-engineered but it may have slipped out of the Wuhan virology lab. This is supported by Berger, np as pointed in the EBSCO blog which believes the virus is naturally originating from bats. Even though this debate successively defends the idea that the virus was human-engineered, it does not exempt the fact that the virus falls to the hands of the Chinese people. The scientist has already concluded that the new coronavirus is a product of natural evolution and is not deliberate genetic engineering. However, the study believes that the coronavirus pandemic was originated from China’s Wuhan city and the needed protocols to prevent the spread of the disease were not taken since the government tried very hard to hide the whole truth of what happened hence making the coronavirus pandemic fall in the hands of the Chinese people.
However, there is another debate even though it has does not enough evidence in it, exempts the Chinese people from the coronavirus. The conspiracy from Iran argues that the coronavirus pandemic falls in the hands of America as they intended to use the virus as a biological weapon to control the Chinese population due to the existing economic rivalry. However, this conspiracy has no evidence to present on the made claims. Furthermore, the possibilities of the coronavirus being a biological weapon have been disputed based on the virus genome properties.
The last common debate about coronavirus pandemic is that the effect of 5G. Some part of experts thinks that a 5G connection is going on. If this conspiracy is true then, the coronavirus pandemic does not fall on the Chinese people.
Conclusion
In conclusion, COVID-19 is a highly contagious respiratory disease that is passed from one person to the other through droplets from any infected victims cough or sneezes, or the victim’s saliva droplets or nose discharge. Everyone is urged to protect himself through regular washing of hands with soap or cleaning of the hands using alcohol-based sanitizer and wearing masks. The disease originated from Wuhan China where is it is believed to have originated from the Wuhan seafood market. However, other debates pointing out that the virus originated from the Chinese Wuhan virology lab. However, according to the lengthy research conducted in this paper, a conclusion has been arrived at which proves that the coronavirus pandemic falls in the hands of the Chinese people. This is because the Chinese authorities did not take the necessary precaution measures to prevent the virus from spreading to the other parts of China and the whole world. The President of China also did not tell the truth about the coronavirus to the other nations in time to prevent themselves from the virus. Also, the coronavirus pandemic falls in the hands of the Chinese people since the alleged Wuhan lab technicians did not take the precautionary measures to prevent the virus from escaping their lab. According to experts, blaming China for the coronavirus pandemic is reasonable and not racist.
Works cited
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Kuo, Lily. The Guardian. How did China get to grips with its coronavirus outbreak? March 9, 2020, <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/09/how-did-china-get-grips-with-coronavirus-outbreak>
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