Asian Angle | Why we need to uncover the origins of Covid-19
- Washington and Beijing are playing an unproductive blame game, but getting to the bottom of it all has nothing to do with politics
- To prepare for the next such viral outbreak, every effort must be made to understand how Covid-19 came about
Some might argue that we should move on and not be mired in an unproductive blame game. But that is not the point. Getting to the bottom of it all has nothing to do with politics. Instead, it is about uncovering the truth, because that will guide governments when they need to formulate policy responses should another pandemic strike in the years ahead – something experts have not ruled out.
It is thus imperative that every effort be made, under the auspices of the World Health Organisation, to understand how the virus came about, its paths of transmission, the mutations it can go through, indeed everything that can be known about it, just so the world can better prepare for the next such viral outbreak.
Far-sighted people like Microsoft founder Bill Gates had years ago warned the global community of the real probability of a pandemic such as Covid-19. Hardly any government, except possibly Singapore’s, paid enough attention, much less geared up for the eventuality. Hopefully, history will not repeat itself because of a reluctance to uncover facts deemed too politically sensitive or embarrassing for some governments.
Separately, people of Chinese ethnicity around the world, who have been at the receiving end of racist taunts and even physical assaults, deserve closure. The H1N1 pandemic at the end of World War I that infected about 500 million people globally and killed an estimated 17 to 50 million has been mislabelled the “Spanish flu” pandemic ever since – even though it has been established beyond doubt that the virus did not originate there.
