The WHO on Feb. 11 2020 gave the official name for the latest novel coronavirus as being COVID-19, which stands for coronavirus disease starting in 2019. (Xinhua/Chen Junxia)
Confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States have exceeded 1.3 million with death toll surpassing 78,000. Instead of concentrating on fighting against the pandemic domestically, some U.S. politicians recently have been fabricating preposterous allegations and pinning the blame on China, to hide their irresponsibility at home.
"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time," said Abraham Lincoln.
Lies evaporate in the light of truth, and let's see how facts speak for themselves.
WUHAN ORIGINATED?
Not necessarily. The place that first reported a virus was often not its origin. Increasing evidence proves that the Spanish Flu did not originate from Spain.
On Feb. 11 this year, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially named the pneumonia caused by novel coronavirus the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) on the basis of the 2015 Best Practices for the Naming of New Human Infectious Diseases, in which it is clearly stipulated that the naming of a disease should not be associated with a particular country or place.
The origin of COVID-19 is still not identified. Source tracing is a serious scientific matter, which should be based on science and should be studied by scientists and medical experts. Being the first to report the virus does not mean that Wuhan is its origin.
Therefore, calling the virus "Wuhan virus" or "Chinese virus" is nothing but stigmatization.
Abundant evidence also shows cases outside China were earlier than deemed. USA Today reported on May 6 that 171 people in Florida showed symptoms of COVID-19 as early as in January, and none reported traveling to China. Michael Melham, mayor of Belleville of New Jersey, said he has tested positive for coronavirus antibodies, and thinks he may have been sick with the virus back in November last year, over two months before the first reported case in the country on Jan. 20.
Mainstream western media including the New York Times, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) all reported that the wrongful connection of Asian communities with COVID-19 stoked serious xenophobia, and frequent occurrences of racist discrimination and harassment against these communities in the United States.
Viruses are the common enemy of mankind, which may appear at any time and in any place. WHO and scientists worldwide have fiercely rebutted the allegation made by some U.S. politicians that the virus was constructed and leaked by the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Saying on April 21 that all available evidence suggests the virus has an animal origin and is "not manipulated or constructed in a lab or somewhere else," WHO spokesperson Fadela Chaib stressed it most likely has its ecological reservoir in bats but how the virus came from bats to humans is still to be seen and discovered.
A joint statement published on Feb. 19 by the Lancet, a prestigious UK medical journal, overwhelmingly concluded that COVID-19 originated in wildlife, as have so many other emerging pathogens.
"If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what's out there now, (the scientific evidence) is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated..." Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told National Geographic in an interview published on May 4.
