Donald Trump announces today that he will close all US borders with Europe except UK for the next 30 days in response to the threats of a severe outbreak of the New Coronavirus disease. Closing borders has proven effectiveness in cutting off the transmission chains of this contagious disease. Taiwan was the first to shut its borders completely with China including Hong Kong and Macau, and has so far remained relatively unaffected by the virus. Many countries have also partially closed their borders with China and other regions where an outbreak is known to occur.
Contagion always has a spreading end and a receiving end. If you're infected, you become a spreader and you should quarantine yourself to reduce the chance of infecting other people, or at least wear a mask. That's a responsible thing to do. But if you're healthy and wear a mask, you are protecting yourself against possible infection. Extending this logic to a national level, however, we only saw countries close their borders to protect themselves against inbound transmission, but there is not a single responsible nation who has closed its borders to prevent outbound transmission, which is what infected individuals are asked to do. Even more regretful is the irresponsible coercion to make other countries not to cut access when you knew you had an outbreak, using some totally irrelevant excuses such as racial discrimination claims or just being unkind (不厚道1—a shameful remark by a nation's spokesman). Of course the real motivation could be economical, or a narrow-minded national pride mentality, or simply selfishness.
The worst among all is the behavior of WHO, who is supposed to stand on the side of protecting people's health but had chosen to play down the situation at the early phase of the outbreak in China, and even advised countries to be cautious about making travel bans that would promote racial discrimination. Despite racial discrimination being none of WHO's business, such advice issued at the early outbreak stage was totally inappropriate and definitely not helpful in containing the virus. Instead, what WHO should and ought to do was to advise its member nations to quarantine themselves (shutting their own borders) should an outbreak occur.
The world is doomed as a result of the poor judgement of WHO and the apparent political bias of the leadership. After these few months, we clearly see the ugliness of the "big" nations, and we also know we should not take WHO's advice seriously if you still wish to survive with good health!
March 12, 2020
_________________1 「回應美國提升中國旅遊警示 華春瑩：美國實在太不厚道」— Citizen News, February 1, 2020
