As deadly as it may be, and aside from the negative economic footprints it leaves in the shores of time,Corona Virus Disease (COVID)-19 leaves a lot of unanswered questions that lingers on the minds ofmany. Yes! Its advent has reignited and deepen, at the same time, our sense of care and support for eachother, a crucial trait of man that the heat of life leading to heightened self-centredness almost washedaway. Faith-based organizations, corporate bodies and governments around the globe have beenawakened to the real call to mankind – love for all, hatred for none, as stipulated in the old books. Evenmore interestingly, the talk of technological advancement in all spheres of life is held all over the world asCOVID-19 begets a necessity for inventions.Nonetheless, can these salutary lessons taught us by COVID-19 make it up for the losses it has inflictedon the whole world? Will there ever be praise songs to be sang some time in life for this seeminglyinvisible “monster”? Agreeably, the ravages of this pandemic far outweigh the inconspicuous inherentgood that is fleetingly visible to few eyes who even less trumpet it. When preparing for the future, itwon’t be to welcome the next pandemic in peace but to wage an exuberant war against the near occasionof any such pandemic. In fact, countries would build ammunitions in wait of a war that might never befought i.e. a cold war against a “invisible common enemy”. Unfortunately, the ruled continually questiontheir leaders whether they would able to recognize timeously when the next enemy strikes in order tolaunch an effective defense. This question arises because many believe that this pandemic wasmishandled ab initio, to wit, leaders of the world were taken off guard. Is this assertion legitimate? Thenthe big question is “who failed first for who to fail next in that order for the pandemic to strike us thathard?”. Who is to blame?This question has gained currency on the international stage and by far resulted in plethora of conspiracytheories churned out by many experts. While some writers exonerates China of any blame and ratherchastise the World Health Organizations (WHO) of the United Nations (UN) for failure in theirmachinery to first detect and eventually establish the needed protocols for mitigating the spread of thevirus at an early stage, and rather reluctantly approaching the menace initially as a “Chinese-Virus” orproblem”, others also passionately indict China for been selfish and parochially whimsical by not sharinginformation with WHO.The first school of thought dwell on the power of UN and for that matter WHO to fish for whateverinformation they needed if they meant business. In fact, the mass evacuation of the citizens of the US andthe EU (European Union) from China tend to be used as the chief evidence of selfish approach by the USand the EU extended to the operations of WHO. Many of this assertion believe that WHO and the world
at large, did very little to help China curtail the spread of the virus because it was initially branded as a“China menace”. In fact, this preposition was exuberantly pronounced, without equivocation, in the wordsof H. E. Donald Trump “Chinese virus”, a statement that occasioned a fierce rebuttal and discomfort froma lot of international political commentators and the media and by far, concretized the position underreview. Perhaps, if the world had approached the menace tactfully and rallied behind China with all thenecessary resources at their disposal, the virus would have been effectively contained in China alone andits impact mitigated effectively. In fact, the escalation of the virus spread is rather attributed vehementlyto the mass evacuation by these powerful countries as a selfish approach to protect their citizenry evenagainst the expert advice from astute persons and organization including WHO herself. Invariably, mostreviews of the transportation of the virus from China to all the other parts of the world ascribe to the massevacuation by the US and EU as one major engine for the problem the world find herself in today. Allcountries who subscribed to this self-seeking approach had one perception – to show off the robust healthsystem they possess and mere showcase of insatiable desire for political supremacy. Rather on thecontrary, this approach came to reveal the inherent shortfalls and lacunas in their health system. Theworld super power, US demonstrated perfect example of what is presented here. The GNBC reported on the 6th of March, 2020 the deputy director for the Division of Preparedness andEmerging Infections at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Satish Pillai who treatedthe first COVID-19 patient that he revealed that the virus circulated unchecked for weeks before the firstdetection. This revelation was corroborated by the report of Dr. Anthony S. Fauci (a top governmentscientist involved in the fight against COVID-19) to Congress that technical flaws, regulatory hurdles andlapses in leadership culminating into absence of robust screening caused the uncontrollable upsurge in theinfections. Indisputably, the world leaders, especially, the world super powers failed to choose a concerted effortover self-projection. And so, as for most of the world’s health experts, the global pandemic got out ofcontrol not solely because of late detection, even though others protest, but the failure on the world’s partto work with a unified front. In the words of David S. Evangelista, President and Managing Director ofthe Special Olympics Europe Eura, as reported by “Euractiv news portal”, “COVID-19 has made it clearthat the world can only win this war if it operates as one unified force” is a displayed a failed approachadopted by the world and its leaders. Truthfully, the second school of thought, as it may seem, can make a legitimate, that China indeedwillfully, with the same selfish posture decided to conceal the severity of the COVID-19 at the time insecrecy. Indeed, even though official records made known worldwide suggest that the first case wasdetected in December, 2019, an astute magazine in Hong Kong, the Guardian published an article which
contracted this report. The article by Helen Davidson revealed an official document that recorded the firstCOVID-19 cases rather on 17th October, 2019. If this is true then the China Communist Party must hasdone a great disservice to the world. Indeed, the WHO had a tough time gaining access to vital information in the early days of COVID-19,time from the Chinese government to enable the organization understand and appreciate the nature of thevirus and the rate of infection so it could be in a better position to advice and develop protocols forcountries that had not yet recovered any cases.Lately in December, 2019 the Chinese government found it necessary to report to the WHO obviously ata time when they could no longer conceal the brunt of the pandemic in secret. In fact, the posture ofChina in dealing with the WHO and the rest of the world was internationally unacceptable to the extentthat, the doctor who blew the whistle on the pandemic, Dr. Li Wenliang was prosecuted wrongly. Thisclearly indicate the willful and premeditated disposition of China to deceive the entire world which fliesthe face of international best practice. In fact China acted in bad faith to deceive the rest of the worldwhich probably made the rest of the world relax on their nerves. Granted that the first school of thought has a legitimate stance, the disposition of China to conceal theseverity of the outbreak in secrecy blindfolded the world and hence the wrongful steps taken to curtail theoutbreak such as the mass evacuation. Again, the self-sufficient posture to WHO by China again did not prickle the world to help hence viewingthe menace as “China virus or problem.Juxtaposing these two stands, it can clearly be nuanced that the world’s posture resulting in the wrongfulapproaches to tackle the menace and the eventual escalation of the global pandemic was caused, to a verylarge extent, by the improper international conduct and selfish approach. It therefore, comes as nosurprise that there are several legal suits against China on various counts.The sages thought
(A Ghanaian writer)[email protected]
