A man places flowers beside a photo of Dr Li Wenliang outside the Houhu Branch of Wuhan Central Hospital in China’s central Hubei province. — AFP file photo
THE medical doctors, the priests, the journalists, or the policemen are the last of all people in any community to get into trouble with the law. In theory, at least.
Not in Wuhan, apparently. According to an AFP report (The Borneo Post, Feb 10), eight physicians were reprimanded by the police for allegedly spreading rumours that would cause unnecessary panic among the public.
The doctors were raising alarm about a new SARS-like virus that they suspected as having been around for some time. They were talking about it openly. Apparently, the police considered this act of talking about the virus as rumour-mongering and this had to stop.
The virus turned out to be real. From Wuhan it has spread out of its borders and indeed has spread to a number of other countries. The damage it has done is enormous: disrupting normal international trade and travels with adverse economic consequences to millions of people. Not to mention the anxiety and fear of those in those countries not yet affected.
In this situation, one wonders, if the warning from the eight doctors of Wuhan had been heeded and the necessary measures, eg quarantine etc had been taken promptly, the people in China and the rest of the world would have been better prepared for an epidemic.
As it happened, the chance of nipping the killer virus in the bud was lost. Most unfortunately, one of the doctors who raised the alarm has passed away, a victim of the virus himself. Equally sad is the fact that one journalist who had interviewed one of the doctors has gone ‘missing’. According to his mother, at the time of writing, she was unable to contact him nor he his mum. Pray for both of them.
The journalist was doing his job, working to let the public know about the danger in their midst, but was unable to do so. Hopefully, he is well, somewhere. Such is the fate of frontline workers everywhere in the world. We wish that the people in authority in every country would listen to the doctors in matters relating to health and diseases.
As for journalists, not many people take them seriously! Nowadays, everyone in possession of a hand phone is a do-it-yourself photo-journalist.
Many journalists have lost their lives in the course of duty. However, the loss of Dr Li Wenliang is a loss one too many because more doctors like him are badly needed during the current crisis. More scientists/doctors are also needed to produce the vaccine as soon as possible for the treatment of the dreaded Covid-19. The world cannot afford to lose any of them.
In the cases of a world-wide pandemic, names matter. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has got a name for this virus. In the early stages of its outbreak, Covid-19 was referred to by the immigration authorities in some countries as something like ‘Chinese flu‘. This insinuation is not fair to China or to any other country.
Not that this is anything new. We’ve all heard of German Measles, Japanese Encephalitis, Vietnam Rose, Spanish Influenza, Asian Flu, etc. Better use scientific names, so as to avoid association with any particular country. Is there anyone out there who thinks an Italian couldn’t get German Measles? Ok, a virus or disease is no respecter of persons or passports. Any national, not just a Chinese national, may be a victim of Covid-19, if exposed to it.
The epidemic clearly was NOT started by ‘the Chinese’; in fact, there is now some evidence that the bats (Entabah or Keluit/Keluang) may be blamed for the spread of Covid-19. According to some people, this virus is traceable to the eating of bat meat.
I have eaten the meat before; it tastes like chicken … It is the belief of traditional healers in my village that bat meat contains properties for the relief of or even for the cure for asthma. Take this belief with a generous pinch of salt, five special spices, and several cups of Chinese wine! I’ve tasted it before the day but then I never had any asthmatic problem in the first place. So I cannot vouch for the efficacy of the bat treatment.
I would be happy if this scare of Covid-19 would send the signal to those boys who have been shooting bats for sale. A few years ago, I discovered a group of men from Kuching shooting bats at night along the road to Kampung Taee. At the time, it was the beginning of the durian season.
Bats are excellent pollinators during the flowering season of the durian trees. People in the villages who own durian trees never kill those bats. They disapprove of outsiders with rifles killing the bats, fearing there will be a poor harvest of durian fruits.
Back to the virus. The world would like China to allow its people to enjoy the freedom of speech. The death of Dr Li has ignited calls by 10 professors in China for political reform in the country. Not going into this ideological stuff now. However, many people believe that a prompt action by the authorities in Wuhan last year would have contained the spread of the virus. Well, that’s being wise after the event.
By now China must have devised its own way of informing its public in terms of the presence of a contagious virus.
It is not for any other country to tell China what to do. However, all members of the community of nations should remain responsible members of that community in terms of sharing information about a common enemy: any outbreak of a contagious virus in their respective countries.
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