Since the COVID-19 has emerged in Dec last year, the entire world has been grappling to contain and overcome its danger.
Basically COVID-19 (As designated by WHO where CO stands for CORONA, VI stands for VIRUS, D for Disease and 19 denotes the year 2019 when it was first emerged) is an infectious disease caused by SARS COVID-19 ,i.e, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Corona virus-19). COVID-19 was first identified in Wuhan, capital of HUBEI Province of Peoples Republic of China, since then it has been spread to all across the globe from the far west of USA to the Eastern tip of Japan. Till now there are almost 0.65 million active confirmed cases from the virus with the death toll of 31000 people. United States accounts for more than 18% of the total infected while Europe reported more than 50% of the total cases around the globe.
As far as Europe is concerned, It seems to be severely gripped in the devastation by the virus. Italy, home for less than 65 million people, has witnessed the worst havoc of the pandemic. Italy has lost thousand of its people and scores of its citizen are ailing. None of the other part of the Europe can be said to be refrained from this grave calamity as all the 28 members country of the European Union has elevated spike in the numbers of virus affectees. While Spain mustered the cluster of 60000 positive cases. virus in Germany and France leaving no stone unturned to win this competitive race. Wuhan was the first and primary epicenter of the virus when it was broke out in Dec 2019. Wuhan along with China has witnessed more than 81000 positive cases. Thus it cannot be asserted that virus would leave any part of the world, expect Antartica, which has no human settlement.
WHY this virus posses more danger to Middle-East and Asia
The regional disparities in the world is not unknown to any of us. It is a veritable fact. Disparities can be seen in various arenas whether its an economic strength, political stabilization, social liberalization, or any other major evolving 21st century’s facets. While the Europe enjoys proper and amicable co-ordinated group of countries under European Union, Middle East struggles for a bit of friendly relationships. While it would be an enjoyable ride in Europe, fear of an imminent onslaught goes all along in Middle East.
In terms of Covid-19 effect, it could be easily assumed that a serious blow of crisis is not too far for the regions of Middle East. Middle East have a cluster of positive cases in general, while Iran in particular has more than 36000 positive cases. Iran and Middle East would be the worst suffered from the havoc by this invisible enemy. The current situation in Iran is very worrying as neither it has any well equipped medical facilities nor it do have first class modern infrastructure including hospitals, sufficient accommodations, etc to combat this virus successfully. Many epidemiologist believes that USA has enough technologies and resources to combat this virus as compared to Iran. If USA is lagging behind, then it would be worst scenario for Middle East. As reported, Iran is having 1 death in every 10 minutes with 50 fresh positive cases.
Criticism over China’s and WHO role
“Two wrong don’t make a right”. This famous proverb here seems ineffective as US president Donald Trump has unleashed a strong criticism against his counterpart China’s President Xi Jinping and WHO. He criticized the alleged role played by both China in spreading the virus throughout the world and WHO in frequently acted supporting the indecisive role of China. Donald Trump is calling this virus as “Wuhan or China virus”.However China has repudiated all the allegation against it. But the Trump designating it as Wuhan or China Virus might have some verity or could be a basis for further deep research whether the trump allegation are reliable.
But as per the situation of the hour, one could, however, hesitantly but could get some sense of understanding if the China’s role in Covid-19 has been suspected. Some basic questions might pose potential to take this question to another level like Why the virus has been spread to all over the world as far as 11000 to New York but none of the Chinese economically strong cities like Beijing, Shanghai which are just 700-800 km away from Wuhan faced any massive blow of virus and remained unaffected, given the fact the millions of people flown into and out of Wuhan before the imposition of lock down in Wuhan on 23rd of Jan 2020. Another aspects that strengthen the China’s suspicious role is the Dictatorial Rule of China’s ruling Communist Party. Xi Jinping is the head and General Secretary of this party. Officials brutally intimidated the whistle blowers for spreading the false information among the society which, however, resulted correct. Li Wenliang was one of them.
He was a Chinese ophthalmologist who worked as a physician at Wuhan Central Hospital. He warned his colleagues in December 2019 about a possible outbreak of an illness that resembled SARS. However he himself contracted the virus and succumbed to illness. Why did Chinese officials tried to hide such a significant piece of information? Was there any conspiracy? All this still to be debated on International fora. Another concrete evidence leads to the ineffective role of WHO. WHO as stand for World Health Organisation, formed in 1948, an International leading healthcare agency tasked for the international public health. Its primary function has been to provide basic health information to various countries and assisting them with the same. But since the last few decades WHO seemed to be incapable of performing its obliged duties and adhering to its fundamental principles. The basic reason behind this is the overlooked policy of Washington DC where it overlooked the requirements and existence of United Nations.
United States often choose to remain aloof of any international organisation whether it is Paris Climate Deal or UNESCO. While China has always been eager to make advantages of such circumstances, exclusion policy of Washington paved a way for Beijing to establish its dominance over various international fora. WHOs Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a former Ethopian Health Minister is said to be a hard line supportive of China. He himself visited China during the outbreak of the COVID-19 and overwhelmingly praised the precautionary measures taken by it for the containment of this deadly virus. He, on his visit, did not even care to speak about Li Wenliang or any of his colleagues. He, in his oblivion for China directly overlooked the potential possessed by the Virus to devastate the humankind.
WHO till 14th of Jan, denied any evidence of human to human transmission of the virus while many, including Dr Li, were against its stand, which turned out be a false information as virus showed the capability of human to human transmission. WHO delayed the declaration of the outbreak from the epidemic to the pandemic as it could have been done much before.
Answers for one set of questions leads to another similar set of question. The only lesson could be learnt here is the efficacy of the United Nation and its Agencies must not be compromised. China must be held accountable if any of the discovery or research points towards it role in developing or spreading the virus across the globe desperately. All the countries and fora must come together with concrete plan to fight against such invisible enemies in future. “Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.”
