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 an unknown number in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China. The need to alert the world was because of the fact that the virus 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 Europe was affected. People were dying. The first question was how this condition should be treated. Many drugs were tried and much was 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 be made to deal with the outbreak. They warned of serious consequences of not taking immediate steps.
The Trump administration expressed some overconfidence and felt that the issue was being over-exaggerated. This was the sentiment up to early March 2020 in the US. 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” 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. President Obama maintained the organization and ensured that it was well equipped and funded. Those Presidents took the warnings seriously and had put an organization 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. America became one of the most ill-prepared developed countries for a pandemic. Therefore, when COVID-19 first made its appearance President Trump played down and even trivialize 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.
President Trump 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 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. In the meantime the WHO organized a high level team to investigate the origin of the Virus. With the change of government in the United States one would have thought that the matter would have come to an end. 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. Despite having a scientific analysis and conclusion from the WHO sponsored team, which stated that it was unlikely that the virus originated in a lab, President Biden ordered his intelligence agency, mainly the CIA, to launch its own investigation. It is therefore a great pity that instead of uniting in the face of a common danger, the world has become more divided than ever. The need for global cooperation 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 the COVID and is having positive economic growth. Instead of making the COVID-19 an international political football we should seek total cooperation 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.
Sincerely,
Donald Ramotar
