COVID-19: Truth and Viral Consequences - Balkan Insight

Indeed, careful scientific research is essential to “germ governance” — as it was, for example, in combating cholera in mid-19th-Century London.

Back then, a doctor called John Snow wandered around the city cataloguing cases of the disease. By using geography and statistics, Snow helped to spark a shift from simply focusing on the health of the individual body and the treatment of symptoms to recognising the relevance of the wider health and behavior of whole populations.

Crucially, Snow applied the old Chinese adage about learning truth from the facts. Likewise, fighting the COVID-19 pandemic requires not only changing patterns of social behaviour through measures such as self-isolation and temporary travel restrictions, but also telling the public the truth. People need to know in good time what is happening and what they should do.

That is why we should be deeply grateful for the heroic dedication and commitment of so many Chinese doctors and health workers in fighting this new killer virus. Their brave struggle has been fought for us all.

China’s communist leaders, on the other hand, should now face some serious questions.

China’s communist leaders should now face some serious questions.

When a variety of pneumonia called SARS — severe acute respiratory syndrome — broke out in Southern China in November 2002, the central authorities in Beijing covered it up for months. Not coincidentally, perhaps, a new Chinese leader, Hu Jintao, was due to be installed in spring 2003.

The Communist Party of China’s clampdown on reporting about the outbreak, and its delay in informing the WHO, may well have reflected its determination to avoid taking the shine off Hu’s elevation.

On that occasion, the brave Chinese whistleblower Jiang Yanyong helped to end the cover-up. Concerted international action subsequently prevented the SARS epidemic from turning into a pandemic. Had this not happened, there would have been many more cases and fatalities around the world.

But when the new coronavirus emerged late last year, China’s communist leaders unfortunately seemed to have learned nothing from that previous episode.

Another brave doctor, Li Wenliang, and some of his colleagues tried to warn about the new virus in Wuhan last December. (Some reports, for example in the South China Morning Post, suggest that there was growing disquiet about its detection even earlier.) But Li and his co-workers were silenced by the police and threatened with punishment unless they kept quiet.

Life in Wuhan thus continued as normal while the epidemic spread. Millions left the city and the surrounding province for the Chinese New Year celebrations — festivities that ended with many funerals, including that of Li.

Research by Southampton University, not yet peer-reviewed, suggests that earlier action by the Chinese authorities would have dramatically reduced the rate of infections.

Disease is a killer. So, too, is the secrecy of a totalitarian regime such as the one headed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, which censored and closed down social media when they reported what was actually happening in Wuhan.

Proper surveillance of potentially catastrophic public-health threats requires knowledge and transparency, both within and between countries. As the deadly COVID-19 pandemic once again shows, telling the truth saves lives.

Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong and a former EU commissioner for external affairs, is Chancellor of the University of Oxford. The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of BIRN. Copyright Project Syndicate. Not for republication

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