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Viswa Nathan

I receive a few messages from friends every day about Covid-19. Many of them raise a chuckle, light relief in these days of global lockdowns and profound anxiety. But then came a different kind of message from a friend in Hong Kong. It carried a few questions.
Why has the coronavirus that has spread across the globe, infecting some 3 million people and claiming over 200,000 lives, not done much damage in its birthplace, China? Also, while the pandemic drove stock markets around the world to nosedive, China’s market did not suffer as much.
Similarly, while more than 1 million people have been infected in the United States and more than 50,000 are dead, only around 83,000 have been infected in China and its death toll is less than one-tenth of the US’.
As I contemplated these questions, Reuters reported that Australia, which is on the executive board of the World Health Assembly, would push for an international investigation into the coronavirus pandemic at the assembly’s annual meeting next month. Such a study is something all should welcome.
It could put to rest all speculation and conspiracy theories about the coronavirus’ genesis – whether it stemmed from a wet market feeding the culinary culture of the Chinese population or from a laboratory developing a biological weapon for world domination.


However, China quickly denounced the Australian move as “political manipulation”, with Communist Party mouthpiece Xinhua later reporting that some investigations are under way or being planned. What the report did not say, however, was who is conducting, or going to conduct, them.
If the investigations are performed solely by Chinese experts, would their findings be credible, considering everything the world has learned about the Communist Party’s early cover-up attempts, hiding from the world the dangers of the outbreak in Wuhan?
Writing in the March 19 issue of The Atlantic, Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that by not releasing information about the spread of the virus in its early phase, China has “imperilled not only its own country and its own citizens but also the more than 100 nations now facing their own potentially devastating outbreaks”.
In The Guardian, Lily Kuo’s March 11 report detailed the agony that Wuhan Central Hospital emergency department director Ai Fen, ophthalmologist Li Wenliang and others endured for speaking about the infection without clearance from the party.


The subsequent death of Li from Covid-19 sparked widespread sorrow and fury. Unfortunately, the people are unable to bring any pressure to bear on their national leaders.
China should come clean and allow an impartial international team of experts to investigate the issue. It should not take cover behind its right to sovereignty and treat it as a domestic affair. Covid-19 is a global humanitarian issue. It is of international concern.
The investigation Australia is pushing for at the World Health Assembly is to uncover the truth for the good of humankind. It should not be limited to determining how the virus came about.
It should also investigate the performance of World Health Organisation in the early stage of this crisis, and whether WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus let China take advantage of it in any way, an allegation that US President Donald Trump and some American politicians have levelled at it.


At the same time, identifying the cause and source of the pandemic is not good enough. All nations need to prepare for a similar global catastrophe in future. Richard Horton, editor of the reputable international medical journal The Lancet, called the global response to Covid-19 “the greatest science policy failure in a generation”.
The signals for preparing to stand ready for the pandemic, he said, were there, as Covid-19 is caused by a variant of the coronavirus that caused the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars).
It is time that the international community stood together and convinced China to open up for investigation, as well as define ways to prevent epidemics of this kind in the future.
Viswa Nathan is a Hong Kong-based journalist and author of the recently published book, Hong Kong: The Turbulent Times


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Covid-19 is a global humanitarian crisis and Australia’s push for an international inquiry by the World Health Assembly should be welcomed. It would also be an opportunity to investigate the role of the WHO in the early stages of the outbreak



Covid-19 is a global humanitarian crisis and Australia’s push for an international investigation by the World Health Assembly should be welcomed. It would also be an opportunity to investigate the role of the WHO in the early stages of the outbreak.


Coronavirus pandemic: All stories

China’s Communist Party

World Health Organization (WHO)

United States

Australia

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


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