Monday, February 3, 2020

Novel Coronavirus (nCoV): Stop Blame to Racism but a Preservation to Gene Pool

Photo from The Sun
By Chester B Cabalza

Blogger's Notes:
Commentary of an Academic 
(Copyright @ 2020 by Chester B Cabalza. All Rights Reserved).

The Philippines placed second after China to suffer death toll from the 2019 novel coronavirus (nCoV). Of the 28 countries affected globally, many of it have temporarily banned flights from China to save own gene pool from contamination from deadly virus. Pragmatic nations even shut off China from air, sea, and land but not virtually. Against racial discrimination and political shenanigans, restrictions imposed, avoiding annihilation of humanity from the fatal germs.

Imagine if Singapore is wiped out from the virus, the innovative city-state shall no longer breed crazy rich Asians; or if Finland hesitates to close its doors from affluent Chinese tourists, we will lose the standard bearer of happiest people on Earth. Mongolia, a close nighbour to China, appears to have no patient yet; but if it happens, the descendants of Genghis Khan will be snapped in seconds.

Small and big nations, whether rich or poor, succumb to the vulnerability of the contagious and confusing outbreak despite the entire Hubei province and its epicentre in Wuhan city held in serious quarantine upsetting all of the provinces of the world's most populous and third largest country.

We know for a fact that widespread infectious diseases have profoundly changed the course of human history. A case in point, Spain's microscopic secret weapon in the form of smallpox epidemic, decimated the densely populated city of the Aztecs. There came the Black Death or bubonic plague that struck Eurasia, killing 20 million Europeans.

Hollywood visualized how contagion can become a global pandemic brought by a coronavirus-like in a star-studded movie in 2011 that originated from China caused by bats. Never believe in eerie similarities birthing armies of zombies from blockbuster pulp films caused by the noxious virus.

Early this year, Chinese physicians breached China's firewall when they started twitting messages about the virus from the human-induced epicenter while a brave migrant worker asked Xi Jinping's resignation on mishandling what the World Health Organization recently described as 'global health emergency'; but vigilant and concerned Chinese citizens got arrested. Or Chinese locals can be locked up for seven years if they slam their government or spread hoaxes in micro-blogging WeChat.

Nonetheless, local politics has not been spared from trending tweets of vitriolic ousting of our own leaders judged by netizens based from their reactions and policies about the current health security.

Hundreds are dying with rising confirmed cases across continents from lethal respiratory infection. Thai doctors use a cocktail of flu and HIV drug for treatment of stricken patients while Australian researchers have successfully cultured the coronavirus permitting fellow researchers to develop improved treatments and diagnostics for antibodies. Scientists alike race research on vaccines to cure the disease spoiling tension from overburdened medical system.

When the world bleeds from contagion the more we need doctors and health workers without borders. Never say that you can't do something, or that something seems impossible, or that something can't be done, no matter how discouraging or harrowing it may be; humans are limited only by what we allow ourselves to be limited by our own minds.