By Hakim Djaballah
A pandemic should have a beginning and an end; its duration is dictated by how well it is managed from a public health perspective. In ideal cases, it should not take longer than two years to eliminate the pathogen, with zero new infections reported over the course of at least six consecutive months.
Two years into this pandemic, we failed as we are experiencing a continuum of new cases reported in every country, even though vaccination rates have reached over 70 percent in some. The world remains in the first wave, it seems that the virus is winning this war, and consequently has led us to be tormented by COVID-19.
What went wrong in the management of this pandemic? There were two missed golden opportunities to stop the virus from spreading everywhere. The first big miss was in December 2019 thanks to the incompetence of the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and his political collusion with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The virus was spectacularly contained in the Wuhan region as a show of strength, but allowed to leave China unhindered to infect others. The Chinese stance of non-cooperation made the situation worse by refusing to provide information on patient zero; instead, they provided a different narrative putting the blame on Wuhan's now infamous Huanan seafood wet market.
The Chinese authorities are no strangers to epidemics and pandemics. They knew about the imminent threats from SARS-CoV2 and the danger it presented to humanity. One possible reason for their actions could have been that maintaining economic dominance was more important to them or perhaps they thought they could bring the rest of the world to its knees by being the only unaffected country and open for business. In the mist of all the virus mayhem, China emerged with a new role of a world healer initiating a global medical diplomacy tour, while still refusing to cooperate on finding the origin of the virus.
The second big miss was in May 2020; while watching Italy, Iran and New York almost burn to the ground by the virus, world leaders still refused to stop travel, close borders, and confine their citizens. It is a kind of common sense that if fewer people travel and move around, the virus will not spread, will not replicate and will not generate new deadly variants.
With all the flashing danger signs, many countries continued with a business as usual approach, downplaying the imminent dangers. It is important to note that while Italy was being ravaged by the virus, French President Emmanuel Macron was leisurely walking the country's streets and savoring its ice cream.
In South Korea, control of the pandemic went exceptionally well, up to the month of April 2020; after that, it became a political tool for President Moon Jae-in to help the ruling Democratic Party of Korea dominate local politics, by first stigmatizing various religious groups and even prosecuting some of their leaders. Various minority groups ended up facing discrimination within Korean society as well.
In November 2021, the country registered nearly 8,000 new cases per day, with desperate hospitals filling up with the sick. The caseload in Korea declined but is now rising again with the spread of the Omicron variant. Many more examples about other world leaders' actions do not leave much for debate.
Was the decision to allow the virus to spread around the world deliberate? It is very hard to think otherwise, especially in view of the actions taken by many world leaders; in particular, the G20 leaders who must have known about the virus threat back in November or December 2019 through their respective intelligence agencies.
It is a plausible assessment that their deliberate decisions were primarily to safeguard their political ideologies, followed by their contribution to an undeclared new world order that we are still unclear as to what it entails: a social reset, a political reset, an economic reset, or even a dominance reset or a combination thereof?
What has emerged thus far is the obvious lack of cooperation and coordination between countries to make a combined effort to end this crisis. The WHO failed in its mission to safeguard the health and wellbeing of all, and it has become a discredited organization trying its best to win back public support.
Political reactions and crisis mismanagement in many countries keep fueling this pandemic, and calling for many speculations and conspiracy theories alike. It is hard to accept that with all the scientific and medical knowhow, we could not have ended it, unless it is deliberate. Soon enough, their actions will be judged by history.
As I write this column, I could not help but to reflect on this "politics of fear" used as the No. 1 governing asset to many world leaders in democracies and autocracies. With the help of both real and fake news together with social media platforms, this fear has taken over our daily lives toward a dark path with no end in sight.
Dr. Hakim Djaballah is an Algerian-born American molecular pharmacologist and technologist with expertise in virology and oncology. He sits on several advisory boards. He is the co-founder, president and CEO of Keren Therapeutics, a startup company dedicated to the science of aging. The views expressed in the article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial direction of The Korea Times.
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Two years into this pandemic, we failed as we are experiencing a continuum of new cases reported in every country, even though vaccination rates have reached over 70 percent in some. The world remains in the first wave, it seems that the virus is winning this war, and consequently has led us to be tormented by COVID-19.
What went wrong in the management of this pandemic? There were two missed golden opportunities to stop the virus from spreading everywhere. The first big miss was in December 2019 thanks to the incompetence of the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and his political collusion with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The virus was spectacularly contained in the Wuhan region as a show of strength, but allowed to leave China unhindered to infect others. The Chinese stance of non-cooperation made the situation worse by refusing to provide information on patient zero; instead, they provided a different narrative putting the blame on Wuhan's now infamous Huanan seafood wet market.
The Chinese authorities are no strangers to epidemics and pandemics. They knew about the imminent threats from SARS-CoV2 and the danger it presented to humanity. One possible reason for their actions could have been that maintaining economic dominance was more important to them or perhaps they thought they could bring the rest of the world to its knees by being the only unaffected country and open for business. In the mist of all the virus mayhem, China emerged with a new role of a world healer initiating a global medical diplomacy tour, while still refusing to cooperate on finding the origin of the virus.
The second big miss was in May 2020; while watching Italy, Iran and New York almost burn to the ground by the virus, world leaders still refused to stop travel, close borders, and confine their citizens. It is a kind of common sense that if fewer people travel and move around, the virus will not spread, will not replicate and will not generate new deadly variants.
With all the flashing danger signs, many countries continued with a business as usual approach, downplaying the imminent dangers. It is important to note that while Italy was being ravaged by the virus, French President Emmanuel Macron was leisurely walking the country's streets and savoring its ice cream.
In South Korea, control of the pandemic went exceptionally well, up to the month of April 2020; after that, it became a political tool for President Moon Jae-in to help the ruling Democratic Party of Korea dominate local politics, by first stigmatizing various religious groups and even prosecuting some of their leaders. Various minority groups ended up facing discrimination within Korean society as well.
In November 2021, the country registered nearly 8,000 new cases per day, with desperate hospitals filling up with the sick. The caseload in Korea declined but is now rising again with the spread of the Omicron variant. Many more examples about other world leaders' actions do not leave much for debate.
Was the decision to allow the virus to spread around the world deliberate? It is very hard to think otherwise, especially in view of the actions taken by many world leaders; in particular, the G20 leaders who must have known about the virus threat back in November or December 2019 through their respective intelligence agencies.
It is a plausible assessment that their deliberate decisions were primarily to safeguard their political ideologies, followed by their contribution to an undeclared new world order that we are still unclear as to what it entails: a social reset, a political reset, an economic reset, or even a dominance reset or a combination thereof?
What has emerged thus far is the obvious lack of cooperation and coordination between countries to make a combined effort to end this crisis. The WHO failed in its mission to safeguard the health and wellbeing of all, and it has become a discredited organization trying its best to win back public support.
Political reactions and crisis mismanagement in many countries keep fueling this pandemic, and calling for many speculations and conspiracy theories alike. It is hard to accept that with all the scientific and medical knowhow, we could not have ended it, unless it is deliberate. Soon enough, their actions will be judged by history.
As I write this column, I could not help but to reflect on this "politics of fear" used as the No. 1 governing asset to many world leaders in democracies and autocracies. With the help of both real and fake news together with social media platforms, this fear has taken over our daily lives toward a dark path with no end in sight.
Dr. Hakim Djaballah is an Algerian-born American molecular pharmacologist and technologist with expertise in virology and oncology. He sits on several advisory boards. He is the co-founder, president and CEO of Keren Therapeutics, a startup company dedicated to the science of aging. The views expressed in the article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial direction of The Korea Times.
