The Washington Post and other mainstream news companies called the Coronavirus “the China Coronavirus”, among other similar names. Then, when others repeated the label, including President Donald Trump, they were attacked and called xenophobic and racist.
This is a rather remarkable story. It’s iconic to our time. And it’s representative of the very obvious turn that mainstream media took, when they chose to start misrepresenting the truth about politics surrounding the coronavirus and started quietly reframing the coronavirus as a political weapon.
This is not a breaking story. But it is an important story, one that developed over the past year. And please note, I often write these stories to remind myself of historic events.
“Chinese Coronavirus” From The Washington Post
The article below is the article I’m going to reference quite a bit. It’s important to the context of the initial circumstances of the virus, when it first hit the United States. The article title, link and screenshot are below:
Article – Jan 21, 2020: First U.S. case of potentially deadly Chinese coronavirus confirmed in Washington state
This article was published on January 21, 2020. Not only is the article title important, but the content of the article itself provides some significance too, as I’ll explain. Similarly, the New York Times published a similar title, called “Wuhan Coronavirus: C.D.C. Identifies First U.S. Case in Washington State“.
Naming of viruses according to their geographic location is a practice that’s been around for ages. This naming convention is not new. You can probably remember reading about the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), Guinea worm, Marburg virus, among many more with geographical-specific names.
Shortly after the news of the “Chinese Virus” started spreading in the United States, Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, sent out this Tweet:
When Coronavirus first hit the United States, nobody knew what to think about the virus. We didn’t know how lethal it was, how it would spread or if it would spread quickly. Kevin McCarthy’s Tweet above was his effort to inform the public about the virus that the mainstream media was calling the “Chinese Virus”. But then he became a target.
Instead of focussing on the virus itself, because so little information was available at the time, the politicization of the virus started quickly.
Kevin McCarthy didn’t delete the tweet. Nor should he have. It’s not racist to utilize geographic naming conventions to describe a virus. That precedent has existed for about as long as disease has existed.
Note: That Tweet above is from Kamala Harris, the same Democrat that Joe Biden ended up selecting to run with him as his Vice President. She worked hard, early in the game, to target Trump. Democrats had just had a crushing defeat from the #BelieveWomen campaign, namely when Tara Reade had filed sexual assault allegations agains Joe Biden, but for some reason they didn’t “believe women” anymore. So, the Coronavirus was a welcome opportunity to recharge the political fight.
They needed to shift the narrative. Democrats needed a weapon. And they found it – the virus. Trump was remarkably unprepared for everything about to come from the politicization of the virus.
Trump Continued Calling It ‘China Virus’
Trump called it the China virus, the same label that the mainstream media had called it that for more than a month. At first it was just a name, then he used the name itself to poke-fun at those trying to politicize it. Trolling level 1000.
China had just released a deadly virus on the world, taking no responsibility for it and Trump’s political opponents were using the virus as a political weapon. Trump closed down the country, ending flights from China, and the left called him a dictator. Nancy Pelosi visited Chinatown before her rude awakening. This also worked well with their goal of framing their false narrative of a coup. They tried to box Trump into a no-win situation, but a lot of Americans started recognizing what was going on.
The mainstream media was creating a chaotic and toxic situation.
If you remember, scientists didn’t have a name for it for a while, so they intentionally called it the Wuhan Coronavirus and the Chinese Coronavirus.
Then the name name-changing game began:
“During a Tuesday hearing on novel coronavirus — CDC director Robert Redfield says the virus is no longer bounded by China therefore it would be inappropriate to call it ‘Chinese coronavirus’.
While it originated in Wuhan, China, Redfield says, “99 percent of the cases that occurred last night, occurred outside of China.”
“This isn’t China. Right now the epicenter, the new China, is Europe,” he said.
ABC News – Democrats demand apology after McCarthy tweets about ‘Chinese coronavirus’
This logical flow is inconsistent with historical precedent. The epicenter of viruses has historically shifted and the names of the virus did not change. When Ebola spread to Europe, the CDC didn’t change the name. When the Zika virus went global, the CDC didn’t change the name.
Keep in mind, some Doctors continued to call the virus the “Chinese Virus”:
The lockdown “cure” is far worse than the Chinese Wuhan flu disease itself. https://t.co/9vUZpdA6Nw
— Dr. Mark McDonald (@MMcDonaldMD) December 22, 2020
Overdose deaths, the subject of that article is a discussion for another day.
Then The News Media Stepped In
The news media changed their course on a dime. All news, for essentially the rest of 2020, started being targeted at Trump. They went from calling it the “Chinese Virus” themselves, to a more scorched earth strategy – forget they ever called it the “Chinese Virus”, and use the opportunity to berate anyone that used the name.
- Washington Post: Trump’s ‘Chinese virus’ slur makes some people blame Chinese Americans. But others blame Trump.
- Washington Post: Trump has no qualms about calling coronavirus the ‘Chinese Virus.’ That’s a dangerous attitude, experts say.
- CNN: Yes, of course Donald Trump is calling coronavirus the ‘China virus’ for political reasons
- CNN: Trump again defends use of the term ‘China virus’
- Guardian: ‘Not racist at all’: Donald Trump defends calling coronavirus the ‘Chinese virus’ – video
- BBC: Trump grilled on use of term ‘Chinese virus’ (Video of Press Conference)
According to the mainstream media, now “Chinese Virus” was a racial slur and hate speech.
Notice the language used in the article titles. “Trump defends”, “Trump’s racial slur”, “dangerous”, etc. It’s fascinating how quickly and strategically they turned the story around for political purposes.
If you weren’t paying close attention at the time, it would be very easy to be persuaded.
A No Win Situation
Politics is always a battle. It get’s dirty. But the true crime recently is the misrepresentation and manipulation from the corrosiveness mainstream media. I’ve written about it more than once, as I’ve seen mainstream news go haywire. On thing is certain, the mainstream media and political left have attempted to force President Trump into a no win situation.
If politicians impose lockdowns, they’re labelled as a Dictator and sometimes racist. If politicians do nothing, they’re criticized for permitting Coronavirus to spread. This is the game we’re seeing being played out.
But the truth is, the pandemic is affecting countries around the world – not just the United States. Countries worldwide are now facing a second lock-down. Europe is facing a second wave of lockdowns. In Central America, where I live, countries are facing a second wave of lockdowns. That’s not the failure of any one politician, including President Trump. This is simply the impact that a rapidly spreading virus has.
While some of what I write may sound like I’m defending Trump, I’m really not. This is not about President Trump. This is about Coronavirus being politicized for political gain across leadership worldwide. Trump is undoubtedly non-presidential, has an inflated ego, is very self-centered and is, for the lack of a better word – a jackass. And that’s not to mention his use of Kung Flu to get a rise out of the left, by stoking the flame to entertain his supporters.
I write this to demonstrate the complete bias of the mainstream media.
As a final mention, let’s briefly mention where the Coronavirus came from.
Coronavirus Came From China
We’ve all lost sight of where Coronavirus originally came from. Or perhaps we didn’t forget, but we give it a pass. China’s government just spread a massive virus worldwide after trying to silence their own Chinese doctors.
Here’s the statement written by Washington Post, in their “Chinese Virus” article:
“Washington state health officials said the man, a resident of Snohomish County, Wash., returned Wednesday from a trip to the region where he was visiting relatives in Wuhan, where the outbreak began. Shortly after arriving at Seattle’s international airport, he began feeling ill and reached out to his health-care provider on Sunday. Local, state and federal officials quickly collected samples and sent them to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for testing. His case was confirmed Monday as the coronavirus that has sickened close to 300 people in China and others in Thailand, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea.”
Washington Post Article – 01-21-2020 (Same article referenced above)
There’s no doubt of where Coronavirus came from. It came from China.
Of course, I have nothing against the citizens of China. This was the failure of China’s government, not the citizens. The only reason that the spotlight was taken off of China’s government was because the virus spread worldwide and the mainstream news in the United States decided to politicize the virus during an election year.
The Big Lie
In case you’ve forgotten, the major scandal that broke in China, was when Li Wenliang, a Wuhan doctor, was silenced for trying to alert other doctors about the virus.
“On Dec 30, 2019, Li Wenliang sent a message to a group of fellow doctors warning them about a possible outbreak of an illness that resembled severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, where he worked.”
The Lancet, February 18, 2020
SARS is caused by a strain of coronavirus, the same family of viruses that causes the common cold. It originated in China in 2002 and has been heavily documented for being transmitted though the air:
“Most respiratory illnesses, including SARS, spread through droplets that enter the air when someone with the disease coughs, sneezes or talks”.
Mayo Clinic – Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)
You can see what happened here. A respected Chinese physician tried to alert other doctors of the dangers of this virus that resembled SARS. Then, Chinese authorities silenced him. It appears that they were rather concerned that the news would spread.
Then, Taiwan warned the World Health Organization (WHO) about Covid.
On December 31, 2019, long before the virus had spread globally, Taiwan contacted the WHO to warn them of the dangers of Covid. Chief of Taiwan’s Center for Disease Control, Chou Jih-haw, wrote a letter asking questions regarding the virus. But the WHO ignored Taiwan.
Bruce Aylward, a senior WHO official, botched a critical interview by RTHK journalist Yvonne Tong. The telling interview showed how strong China’s influence is at the World Health Organization.
Yvonne: “Will the WHO reconsider Taiwan’s membership? …Hello?”
Aylward: “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear your question.”
Yvonne: “Ok, let me repeat the question.”
Aylward: “No, that’s ok. Let’s move to another one then.”
Yvonne: “I’m actually curious of talking about Taiwan’s case.”
Aylward: (Hangs up the phone)
What’s prevalent here is not necessarily the conversation about Taiwan. What’s prevalent is how much the WHO is in the pockets of China.
This interview should have been aired all over the world by the mainstream news, as a warning message that the WHO had been heavily influenced by China regarding Coronavirus disinformation. Instead…crickets. Not a single mainstream news organization in the United States covered these events. Bruce Aylward’s biography was removed from the WHO’s leadership webpage in the days after the interview.
Only two weeks later – a massive lie was dropped onto the world.
Here is a screenshot of the Coronavirus Tweet shown above, in case it gets deleted.
The tweet is from the World Health Organization (WHO). Governments worldwide depend on the WHO during their decision making. The lie is obvious. There was already evidence of human-to-human transmission. Doctors in China had already made the connection to SARS. But according to the WHO’s Tweet, there was no “clear” evidence, obviously a goal to muddy the conversation and blatantly lie to the world.
Let’s look at some additional evidence.
“Transmission rates are unknown for 2019-nCoV; however, there is evidence of human-to-human transmission. None of the 99 patients we examined were medical staff, but 15 medical workers have been reported with 2019-nCoV infection, 14 of whom are assumed to have been infected by the same patient.”
Chinese Academy of Sciences – Study funded by National Key R&D Program of China – January 30, 2020
Also…
“On January 20, Zhong Nanshan, the leader of the high-level expert group of the National Health Commission and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said in an interview with the media that the new type of coronavirus pneumonia has human-to-human transmission, and 14 medical staff were infected while caring for a patient.”
China News Weekly – 01/21/2020 (Translated from Chinese)
There was plenty of examples to demonstrate that Chinese authorities were well aware of its dangers of human-to-human transmission.
So why isn’t China responsible? Because of politics. Not science…political science.
And note – I’m not saying that China’s government deserves ridicule for the virus originating in China. They only deserve severe criticism for their dishonesty to the world. We have no reason, that I’m aware of, to assume that anyone intentionally created the virus. Therefore we can only cast blame where blame is due.
Additionally, the mainstream news media worldwide has conveniently rejected putting any responsibility on China, while they destroy public trust and control political opinion, especially in the United States. Meanwhile, doctors were being silenced around the world regarding their findings.
Make no doubts about it, China’s government is achieving multiple political goals from this virus spreading. Accident or not, hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost and economies crushed.
Chinese Whistleblower Comes Forward
According to APNews, the World Health Organization (WHO) expressed frustration about China’s lack of transparency later in the year. China sat on critical information, including the virus’s genome, for weeks beyond what was necessary – that resulted in the virus spreading abroad.
In June of 2020, researchers looked at satellite images of hospitals in Wuhan, China and discovered that hospitals started seeing a rise in patient visits as early as October 2019 – suggesting that the novel Coronavirus may have been taking it’s toll much earlier than expected, but was still kept quiet by Chinese authorities.
Then later, in December 2020, a final confirmation was presented by a whistleblower from China, providing 117 pages of internal documents from the Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to CNN. The leaked documents, now known as The Wuhan Files, show that China struggled between October 2019 and April 2020 to contain the virus. China’s officials knew about the dangers of the novel Coronavirus as early as October 2019 – but they didn’t sound the alarms until months into 2020.
In response to China’s poor handling of the virus, President Trump has imposed new rules against China and removed the USA as a member of the World Health Organization.
A Final Mention
I initially decided to investigate this story further when I was searching for information about the origin of Coronavirus. I came across this article from Jim Cegielski, which shed some light on the media’s bias regarding the virus. It’s a very interesting read.
Thank you to all of my readers.
