Coronavirus Goes Global – by Deborah Levine

BodineIn the early days of the coronavirus, during the Lunar New Year Celebration, I asked my cousin who had worked in Asia years ago if Americans would pay attention to what was happening. The coronavirus family include the common cold, but this virus had never been seen before. Despite reports that 41 people died and 1,400 were infected, my cousin was not optimistic that Americans were paying attention, at least not yet. Early information reported that only a quarter of cases were severe and the dead were mostly elderly people with pre-existing conditions.  But the muted reaction in the USA is changing, as it did in China. 

Despite the downplay of the severity,  pharmacies in Wuhan began to run out of supplies and officials urged people to avoid crowds. Soon the city was on lockdown with no public transportation in or out of the city. McDonald’s and Starbucks closed and the US, France and Russia tried to evacuate their nationals. Disney closed its resort in Shanghai and tourism began to shut down. A friend reported that all of her consulting work in China had been cancelled through May.

China’s leaders called this a “grave situation” and even at this early stage, travel restrictions were imposed on Wuhan, the original source of the virus and there was announcement that private vehicles would be banned from Wuhan’s central districts. Lines started to form at hospitals and pharmacies were running out of supplies. Panic began to set in.

China began suspending all foreign trips by Chinese holiday tour groups, as the number of cases rose and a few cases appeared in Australia, France, and the US involving people who had recently travelled from the affected region in China. China’s neighbors were high alert, however, with cases reported in Thailand, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, South Korea and Nepal. They were treated in isolation, but the numbers weren’t enough yet for the World Health Organization to classify the virus as an “international emergency”,

The nightly news was still muted even as the situation worsened, the hospitals were flooded and one exhausted 51-year-old doctor, Jiang Jijun, died of a heart attack while treating patients. The Chinese government sent 1,200 more medical professionals to Wuhan as the quarantine of 35 million people across 12 cities took hold. Wuhan’s mayor admitted that initial earnings were not sufficient. The early phase of the outbreak had been botched with the falsehood that the virus could not be spread from human to human.

Few people heard about scientists creating simulations at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, showed that such a disease might kill 65 million people over 18 months. I would have started to really worry but the SARS outbreak about 17 years ago that infected more than 8,000 people, killed a tiny fraction of that number.

But the simulation wasn’t focused on the deaths. The intent was to highlight the potential loss globally of $750 billion dollars and the societal and economic consequences. Maybe that’s why WHO originally congratulated China for taking the appropriate measures to contain the spread of coronavirus. 

As the numbers grew, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus an emergency in China, but not an international emergency.  Yet, it is developing a global strategic preparedness and response plan. How can it not as multiple countries report confirmed cases?

Accused of not reporting all cases and downplaying the seriousness of the situation led to a recalibration of diagnosis strategies. But this comes long after the Chinese whistleblower doctor was censored by police, contracted the virus and died. Reports of his death were replaced with reports of being treated for the disease, which many have interpreted as a convenient way to say that while everything was done to save him, he finally succumbed. 

 The outrage in China spread and the death of this doctor magnified the unrest. The societal and economic consequences of major upheaval are immense.  Official control and repression of information couldn’t prevent protests against the Chinese who might enter with the virus from being folded into general protests against the Chinese governments’s role In Hong Kong.

Sports events are being curtailed or postponed. The International Exhibition of Inventions held annually in the Swiss city of Geneva is postponed for six months. In a poll of US companies in China by Shanghai’s American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham), 78 percent of the respondents said they did not have sufficient staff at their Chinese plants to resume full production and 48 percent said plant shutdowns had already impacted their global supply chains. While business are ramping up again, the supply chain is already impacted and a labor shortage is likely to slow down progress.

Technology is giving the coronavirus a global reach beyond any infection. A conspiracy theory about the coronavirus was shared 9,000 times before Twitter removed it. The theory being spread combines unscrupulous scientists, greedy pharmaceutical companies, and an authoritarian government bent on world domination. Facts can be flexible as young people turn to a video gamer information on how diseases spread, even as its creators try to direct gamers to more reliable sources.

U.S. health officials have rebuked China and vice versa over the information shared. Yet, the US government is also trying to control information, in part to prevent panic, but also to limit the economic consequences of the coronavirus. They point out that far more American die of the flu than are likely to die of the coronavirus. And there is a limit to what federal officials can say publicly, with an almost censorship-like routing through the Vice President’s office. Yet there is something about a potential pandemic that circumvents central control.  Will we see social and economic consequences in the USA that overrides official reporting?

New BeginningsThe potential social unrest resulting in what WHO is now rating as a very high emergency should make us all increase our awareness of violent reactions. Increased risks and shortages with decreased access to solutions made World Interfaith Harmony Month a vital movement for community wholeness under this stress. The American Diversity Report New Beginnings project is a must in these times when people of good faith everywhere on the globe must work together for the good of their communities, both economically and socially. How better to counteract the affects of this coronavirus season.

Editor-in-Chief

3 thoughts on “Coronavirus Goes Global – by Deborah Levine”

  1. The corona virus is not a myth,the escalation of the virus makes it an international concern.It’s so appropriate to have this wall of ADR New Beginning 2020 to call upon all heads of state and stakeholders to rise up and address this catastrophe before itcgets out of hand.All facilities as brother Howie has mentioned need to be awakened to come with ways and means of arresting this health hazard.

  2. Levine is ahead of the curve on this matter. A central government whether Communist or Democratic has a difficult or impossible time dealing with health problems and problems such as Terrorism, crime, and poverty, Look at the plight of our inner cities in the U.S. and abroad. Look at the handling of Chernobyl, The coronavirus took too long for China to react. Could it be confined? Probably not. Could it be better controlled and information spread more quickly? Most definitely.

    Police, hospitals, and other public services have a difficult time handling catastrophes. In WW2 citizens joined in civil defense groups of ordinary citizens. Dunkirk was evacuated in WW2 by a British civilian navy using pleasure boats to saved the British Army. My own Father, Grandfather, and Uncle volunteered to become volunteer Coast Guard citizen sailors and turned our pleasure boat, Susan II into a Coast guard vessel patrolling the Connecticut and Long Island Shorelines.

    It is time that universities, clergy, local governments and all segments of communities stand ready to respond to any local, national or global emergency.
    Reply Reply All Forward

  3. Levine is ahead of the curve on this matter. A central government whether Communist or Democratic has a difficult or impossible time dealing with health problems and problems such as terrorism, crime, and poverty, Look at the plight of our inner cities in the U.S. and abroad. Look at the handling of Chernobyl, The coronavirus took too long for China to react. Could it be confined? Probably not. Could it be better controlled and information spread more quickly? Most definitely.

    Police, hospitals, and other public services have a difficult time handling catastrophes. In WW2 citizens joined civil defense groups of ordinary citizens. Dunkirk was evacuated in WW2 by a British civilian navy using pleasure boats to saved the British Army. My own Father, Grandfather, and Uncle volunteered to become volunteer Coast Guard citizen sailors and turned our pleasure boat, Susan II into a Coast guard vessel patrolling the Connecticut and Long Island Shorelines.

    It is time that universities, clergy, local governments and all segments of communities stand ready to respond to any local, national or global emergency.

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