Pompeo's buck-passing won't help the U.S. battle against COVID-19

A screen shot of Mike Pompeo being interviewed on Fox News, Friday, March 6, 2020. pompeo

As the COVID-19 virus spreads rapidly in some countries, so do some political viruses aimed at shifting the public’s attention by stigmatizing China.

During an interview with Fox News on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tried to deflect domestic criticism of the government’s incompetence in handling the outbreaks in the country toward Beijing, saying “The data set out of China has been imperfect.” Such scapegoating is un- helpful to the United States attempts to combat the virus.

What China has done in containing the spread of the virus has been widely recognized by the international community.

The Lancet published an editorial on Saturday, saying “evidence suggests that the colossal public health efforts of the Chinese Government have saved thousands of lives.” It noted that “although other nations lack China's command-and-control political economy, there are important lessons that presidents and prime ministers can learn from China's experience.” WHO experts, including Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, have repeatedly stated that other countries can learn from China’s experience. Chile, for instance, is about to send a group of four experts to China to learn how Chinese people have dealt with the epidemic.

A WHO-China joint mission has said China has rolled out perhaps the most ambitious, agile, and aggressive disease containment effort in history, which “has averted or at least delayed hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 cases in the country” and “played a significant role in protecting the global community and creating a stronger first line of defense against international spread.” Egyptian Health Minister Hala Zayed has said that "Had it not been for the very strong precautionary measures taken by the Chinese government, the situation could've been different worldwide and the outbreak could've been larger."

The causes leading up to the COVID-19 virus spreading worldwide are complicated: it is new to humans and an understanding of its nature and its transmission route is a gradual process; frequent movement of people in the era of globalization has increased the risk of epidemics; and some countries have paid insufficient attention to the dangers, lack sufficient means, experience and resources to tackle major epidemics, a major concern voiced by WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Thursday.

In terms of the United States, health officials have been sounding an alarm over the insufficient supply of test kits. One frontline doctor in New York City had to plead with the health department to test people for COVID-19 — and didn’t have access to rapid diagnostic tests. Vice President Mike Pence admitted the United States didn’t have enough coronavirus tests to meet the expected demand… It is convenient for Pompeo to blame China for all the problems the United States is faced with. But such false accusation is not helpful to the U.S. fight against the epidemic. Rather, it may lead to misplaced focus on the wrong issue.

Passing the buck on to China places political interests above public interests. By attacking and discrediting China, some Western countries and politicians are attempting to find a scapegoat for their incapability and incompetence in preventing and controlling the epidemic. Such a malicious political virus needs to be treated swiftly.

(CGTN)