Why calling COVID-19 the China virus is not racist

Naming diseases and viruses after their place of origin has been common practice for years, writes Ed Gannon.

Ground zero: Chinese President Xi Jinping talks by video with patients and medical workers at the Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province. Picture: Xie Huanchi/Xinhua/AP

SPARE me. There’s a new virus possibly heading our way.

Not a human virus, thank God, but one that could whack a big part of our society very hard.

African Horse Sickness has hit Thailand, killing more than 100 racehorses.

It’s not a new virus, having been around since the 1930s, but this is the first time it has been detected in Thailand. And Thailand is a hell of a lot closer than Africa.

The virus — which cannot spread to humans — originated in tropical Africa (as the name indicates) and has since spread throughout the continent. It was detected in Myanmar (Burma) and Kyrgyzstan in central Asia in 2018.

Thailand now brings it one step closer to us.

Spread by insects, the virus has no known cure or treatment for affected horses and causes fever and possible heart failure.

While this may pale in comparison to what we face on the human front globally, it is no less devastating and continues a disturbing pattern of animal viruses threatening billion dollar industries.

African Swine Fever is another animal disease on our doorstep, detected in Papua New Guinea earlier this month after spreading through Asia.

It is estimated this fever could cost the Australian pork industry $2 billion, and wipe out local pork production.

Those who think it won’t get to Australia are extremely optimistic.

Now, consider the names of those two diseases; they carry their place of origin.

Which is pretty standard for diseases and viruses.

When US President Donald Trump called COVID-19 the China Virus there was widespread outcry. Even if he was doing it merely to deflect blame from his incompetent handling of the crisis, was it actually racist?

It is not racist to name a disease or virus after its continent, country or place of origin. It is actually convention to do so.

Africa is carrying the can for the horse virus and pig fever. Locally, Bairnsdale has an ulcer named after it, while Ross River Fever is named after a Queensland river.

What about German measles and Spanish flu? Even Norovirus was named after a town in the US.

And Ebola is an African River (Africa can’t take a trick, can it).

None of those attract accusations of racism.

So there is no reason COVID-19 shouldn’t be called the China Virus or Wuhan Virus, after the city where it obviously originated.

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However China, you see, appears to be a protected species. That certainly seems to have been the case in this crisis.

Much of that has to do with the kid-glove treatment China and its increasingly power hungry president, Xi Jinping, received from the World Health Organization, the body that is meant to be the world’s health policeman.

With COVID-19, WHO has failed in its role miserably.

While President Trump was rightly caned for cutting funding to WHO – again, he only did it to detract attention from his appalling lack of leadership – he had a point.

WHO spent too much time during the critical start of this crisis in the thralls of China, failing to hold China to account, and being too willing to believe the falsehoods coming out of that country. Which is no surprise when you read how China has infiltrated the WHO over the past few years, influencing senior appointments and shutting down scrutiny.

Perhaps, if it is offensive to name this virus after China, it should carry the names of those who really put us in this mess.

WHO-Ping Cough anyone?

• Ed Gannon is Editor of The Weekly Times

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