Early COVID-19 Name Was Much More Menacing, Devious WHO Action Protected China's Reputation
The opening month of 2020 was hectic, to say the least.
The impeachment saga of President Donald Trump — virtually guaranteed to die in the Senate — was drawing to a close, Iran was rattling sabers toward the United States and a strange new disease was spreading in the little-known (at least to the U.S.) Chinese city of Wuhan.
Although the World Health Organization originally went to bat for China, claiming Chinese authorities had “found no clear evidence” that the virus could be transmitted between humans, the outbreak quickly grew so severe that multiple Chinese cities were locked down. It was soon revealed that the germ rapidly spread between people, causing nightmare scenarios in places like nursing homes.
The virus was eventuality identified as a coronavirus — in the same family as the infamous severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS — and temporarily named 2019-nCoV (2019 novel coronavirus).
Reaction to the discovery was swift, with the establishment media quickly cashing in on the connection.
CNN reported on deaths from “a new SARS-like virus” that had originated in China, and ABC News similarly linked the virus to SARS when profiling its jump to Japan.
One analysis of the virus’ potential economic impact even called it “SARS 2.0.”
The novel coronavirus was even given a new moniker in honor of its spooky similarity to the SARS virus. While the virus that caused a deadly 2003 outbreak was named “SARS-CoV,” the coronavirus that appeared in 2019 was officially dubbed “SARS-CoV-2.”
The implications for China were serious. A second major SARS outbreak would have been a devastating blow for the ruling Communist Party of China, especially if the disease caused by the virus was in danger of being called “SARS 2” by the public.
The country has a rocky history with the disease. Since the initial organic outbreak of SARS in 2003, the pathogen has escaped from the same Beijing biolab on at least four separate occasions.
If SARS-CoV-2 hitched a ride out of a secure laboratory, as mounting evidence hints happened at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, it would be a disaster for China.
Thankfully for the communist powerhouse, the WHO stepped in.
On Feb. 11, the global health group announced the new disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus would not be named “SARS 2,” but rather “COVID-19,” which is short for “coronavirus disease 2019.”
The WHO also said it would try to avoid references to SARS when talking about the virus itself.
“From a risk communications perspective,” the WHO says on its website, “using the name SARS can have unintended consequences in terms of creating unnecessary fear for some populations, especially in Asia which was worst affected by the SARS outbreak in 2003.”
“For that reason and others, WHO has begun referring to the virus as ‘the virus responsible for COVID-19’ or ‘the COVID-19 virus’ when communicating with the public.”
By Feb. 11, the WHO already knew that the number of people infected with COVID-19 was more than five times as high as the number infected during the 2003 SARS outbreak.
And the coronavirus pandemic didn’t show any signs of slowing down, either.
Instead of warning the world about the seriousness of this disease, it appears the global health group actually worked to preemptively downplay links between the 2003 SARS outbreak in China and COVID-19.
If the WHO had been functioning as an actual health organization instead of the public defender of China’s reputation, the worldwide outbreak might not have been as bad.
The globalist group failed at nearly every level during this pandemic, parroting China’s lies and actually praising the country for its early response to the outbreak. Crafting a new name to avoid undue scrutiny on China only confirms the group’s deadly bias.
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