Dear Editor,

AT the end of 2019 the Chinese authorities announced to the world that they detected a virus that was attacking the respiratory system of people and had killed quite a few in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China. The need to alert the world was because of the fact that the virus was being spread in the air and therefore, in the highly interconnected world we live in today, was likely to spread the world over.

In order to battle the spread of the disease China immediately locked down Wuhan City.

That proved to have been a very effective way of fighting the virus.

Inevitably the disease began spreading. South Korea was attacked early and shortly after the Europe began to be affected.

People began dying. The World Health Organisation (WHO) sprang into action and sought to give leadership in the world. At first the question was how this condition should be treated. Many drugs were tried and many were also discarded. Fear and frustration stalked all lands. A big effort began in many countries to develop a vaccine to protect the masses.

In the meantime two views emerged in the United States. On the one hand the scientists were urging that the situation be taken seriously. They urged that immediate preparations he made to deal with the outbreak. They warned of serious consequence of not taking immediate steps.

On the other hand the Executive, led by Donald Trump felt that the issue was being over-exaggerated. Moreover, the Trump administration and President Trump in particular expressed some overconfidence. After all the US was the most powerful country in the world and it would be able to wipe out the virus in no time should it reach the US. This was the sentiment up to early March 2020 in the US.

Apart from some display of arrogance on the part of the President Trump and some in his administration that behaviour became a defence to the government due to its earlier actions in preparing or not preparing the US for such eventualities.

US experts, like experts in other developed countries, had long been talking about an event such as the COVID-19 attack. This was their summing up of the world experience and the many pandemics that had visited us throughout history. Only a hundred years ago the “Spanish Flu” had killed millions in the world. Scientists warned that another such event was almost inevitable.

Based on that conclusion, scientists have been warning and urging governments to take precaution and to prepare for such an eventuality. After all mankind’s actions were rapidly changing the world’s environment which was making a pandemic a most likely outcome.

The George Bush administration had taken this issue very seriously. The US government under President Bush established a task force/think tank of scientists to advise government and guide the government’s preparatory actions.

The President Obama, who replaced President Bush, maintained the organisation and ensured that it was well equipped and funded. Those Presidents took the warnings seriously and had put an organisation in place to deal with such an eventuality. They quite rightly took guidance from the scientists.

On the assumption that he wanted to cut out unnecessary expenditure, Trump disbanded the group that was preparing for any type of pandemic. America became one of the most ill-prepared developed countries for a pandemic. This was an extremely short sighted decision.

Therefore, when COVID-19 first made its appearance President Trump began to play down and even trivialise the real dangers that it posed. He himself is on record as saying that it would just disappear, nothing to really be over-concerned about.

He was even insultive to the WHO and the efforts it was making. He developed great hostility to that organisation and pulled the USA out of that UN body and removed America’s financial contribution to it. That was a very serious blow to the world’s response to COVID-19.

He began to show much impatience with his own scientists who were urging that this matter be taken seriously. They recommended wearing masks and even lockdown. Many of the technical personnel were removed from their posts because they showed disagreement with Trump. He was often insultive to many of the leading scientists in that field like Dr. Fauci whose position became very uncomfortable. It was only Dr. Fauci’s high sense of responsibility that kept him from resigning.

Trump himself refused to wear a mask and even organised many public meetings. Most people at those meetings were not wearing masks and social distancing proposed by the experts were disregarded.

This situation, led to political consequences. Trump began to lose popularity at the time when the US was going towards a Presidential Election. He therefore had to find another scape goat to blame.

He began pointing accusing fingers at China. In this exercise he had the full support of the US media. The media in the US seems to be programmed against some countries, China being the foremost. The chorus was that China was to be blamed. To use the situation to politically attack China they began to accuse China of manufacturing the virus. All of this was to divert the public’s attention from the great folly of disbanding the organisation that was established to deal with the issue.

In the meantime the WHO organised a high-level team to investigate the origin of the virus. This group, made up of highly respected scientists, spent twenty eight days in China working intensely on the matter.

Their conclusion was that it was very unlikely that the virus could have been created in a lab. The technical challenges for that appears to have been too great a challenge. The very strong evidence was that it was transmitted from animal to human. Most likely from bats which are known to be carriers of COVID virus.

With the change of government in the United States one would have thought that the matter would have come to an end. After all Joe Biden advocated taking the advice of the scientists during the elections campaign. He strongly attacked Trump handling of the COVID crisis and his blatant disregard for science. He did make considerable political mileage on Trump’s anti-science stance and that was probably the main reason that Mr. Biden got elected.

On taking power, President Biden did a great job in getting the vaccines, which appearance coincided with the victory of the Democratic Party, into the arms of its citizens. His aggressive actions helped to slow down the spread of the virus considerably. He rightly listened to the experts and was guided by them.

However, President Biden has also shown his anti-China attitude on assuming office.

The need for global co-operation has never been stronger than now. The US have shown that it has great possibilities in defeating the pandemic as we see since the new administration took power. At the same time China’s contribution to this cause has been second to none. Its approach has helped it to recover quickly from the effects of COVID-19 and is having positive economic growth.

Instead of making the COVID-19 an international political football, we should seek total co-operation to end this deadly disease. If China and America work together and take the lead in fighting COVID-19 together the whole world would be better for it and the sooner we would be free of the pandemic.

Yours sincerely,

Donald Ramotar
Former President of Guyana