Dangers of how little we know on coronavirus

Workers sewing at a factory in Wenzhou making hazardous material suits to be used in the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak. Picture: AFP

The effect the coronavirus is having on the world grows by the day. Those optimists who thought there might be some quick fix were wrong. We know that the world’s best scientists and doctors are working on a vaccine that might be the solution to this, but no one is suggesting this will happen quickly. The SARS virus came and went without leaving such a devastating footprint. The worry too is that this virus does not only hit the physically weak - it does not discriminate who it targets. Sadly too few of us have an immune system which can fight this one off. The effect on the travel and tourism industries will be severe. The only winners so far are those who manufacture face masks, and that is more than a little off putting when you consider that the experts are telling us that the masks are virtually useless in fending off this earthshattering virus.

Scott Morrison has done all that can be asked of him in forming Australia’s response but there is no way we can keep this virus out. Only a few weeks back there were 43 flights a day between China and Australia, giving us more than enough opportunity for the virus to spread further and faster. I have served as Health Minister and have full confidence in our health bureaucracy. The advice given to government will be as good as it gets. If that advice is acted upon swiftly, the damage will be minimised.

There are dangers about which we know little. Totalitarian regimes are notoriously reluctant to admit that anything is going poorly in their bailiwicks, lest they be accused of failure. While the truth must eventually come out, the Chinese will have their hands on the taps of information flow. Don’t expect those taps to be turned on any time soon. We will only know of the full extent of the damage in China when they are good and ready to let us know. In the meantime, we batten down the hatches and do the best we can. The Chinese are big enough to thumb their noses at the rest of the world.

The great challenge for decades to come will be how Australia manages its relationship with China. We can never stray too far form the American orbit yet our economic future lies in Asia and in China in particular. There are flashpoint areas like Taiwan and Tibet in play now and we don’t want any more of them. Our foreign policy must at least show restraint from straying into areas where conflict with China is inevitable. It is to be hoped though, that China drops its paranoia about the way its students are acting and what they are saying in countries like ours.

I can remember so well that in second class at the age of six, Sister Annette telling the class of kids who believed everything she said, that the Chinese were going to invade us and take us all over. She could never have understood that the Chinese could buy their way to influence here by our willingness to accept direct investment in our industries.

Who would have believed then that more than 40 per cent of America’s debt is held by China. The times, they are a changin’.