THE SPECTRUM
The (Deadly) Cost Of History Repeating Itself: From SARS to COVID-19 By Abigail Goh
Written 13 April 2020 At the time of writing, the amount of available information on Covid-19 was highly limited due to its novel and emerging nature. The emergence of the novel coronavirus, officially named COVID-19, has been a great source of fear since late December 2019, and is currently an international public health emergency with infection numbers surpassing 1.8 million across 210 countries, with over 114,980 deaths. As the pandemic unfolds, there has emerged a large degree of uncertainty regarding how long it will last, as well as the social, economic, and health disruptions it will cause at the cost of human life. Nevertheless, there is enough data available to analyse and review the effects China’s censorship and wet market policies have had on COVID-19’s initial outbreak. This paper will retrospectively and comparatively review policy changes from the source of the 2002 SARS coronavirus outbreak (Guangzhou Province), to present-day (2020) COVID-19 (Wuhan, Hubei Province) outbreak.This paper argues that knowledge during any public health crisis is crucial in preventing the virus’ initial spread from turning into a global pandemic. The paper recommends a ban of wildlife trading and the wet market industry in China. Although this paper illustrates the differences in a cross-case analysis, there are stark continuities in which Chinese public health is blatantly disregarded by censorship and wildlife trade policies.
‘...the COVID-19 crisis seems only to add to the... obfuscation and repression left by Chernobyl, Fukushima, and SARS.’1
Additionally, it would be both inaccurate and naïve to solely attribute the global scale and impact of this disease to Chinese governance and public health policies. This paper does not claim to provide solutions that would fully prevent a pandemic from occurring again, as there are many epidemiological factors that cannot always be managed (i.e. the banning of wet markets would not guarantee the removal of all zoonotic disease). As history has shown, the emergence of zoonotic diseases has emerged in several parts of the world, making these policy ‘lessons’ not unique to China – like the Climate Crisis’ disruptive effects, this is a transnational policy problem. Therefore, this paper aims to reduce probabilities leading to an outbreak, as well as suggest that all countries review their current health crisis policies and build preemptive frameworks to contain and manage future infectious diseases in the initial stages, in the following ways: 1. Review State Censorship: Containing disease largely relies upon behaviorally informed action. Governments need to review how a viral outbreak is communicated to the public and to transnational organisations. Greater transparency and access to healthcare professional/ specialist advice is also crucial. 2. Revise Wet Markets and Ban Wildlife Trade: Tighter market regulation and surveillance, along with stricter laws banning the (legal and illegal) wildlife trade industry, should be implemented. Viral pathogens thrive in the conditions of wet markets, where livestock and wild animals are culled, kept, and sold. Disease is more likely to emerge in unsanitary conditions in agribusiness; genome sequencing suggests that SARS and COVID-19 both likely emerged from wet market wildlife products (i.e. animals such as civet cats, pangolins and bats). Reviewing State Censorship: Initial Outbreak, Medical Whistleblowers and Media Campaigns
Covid-19 cases per 100,000 people in Mainland China in April. The black region is Hubei Province with 114.40 cases per 100,000 people. By BoyuZhang1998 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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Chinese censorship of information on public health conditions is not unique to coronaviruses and can be seen in other diseases such as HIV/AIDS, which creates a dilemma