TheU.S.isInarguablytheLargestSpreaderofCOVID-19_Qianli

原标题：The U.S. is Inarguably the Largest Spreader of COVID-19

Illustration by Qianli

The World Health Organization recently released its Phase-II plan for tracing the origin of the virus that caused the global pandemic. One thing inexplicable is that the plan takes the hypothesis of “China’s violation of laboratory procedures causing virus leakage” as one of the research priorities, despite the fact that an early report of the WHO-China joint mission ruled out a laboratory accident as the cause of the pandemic, saying it was “extremely unlikely” that the pathogen leaked from a Chinese facility.

The WHO’s second-phase origin tracing plan is likely the result of manipulation by and threat from the United States, as the country is hyping up conspiracy theories everywhere, shifting attention and covering facts. It even came up with a ridiculous COVID Resilience Ranking, with an attempt to whitewash the country’s catastrophic failures in pandemic response.

When most countries imposed such rigid restrictions as lockdowns to contain the virus’ spread, the US remained fairly “open” . Many Americans disregarded mask-wearing, social-distancing and stay-indoors orders. Following these rules certainly would affect personal “freedoms” and caused heated debates in the country. No wonder the pandemic spread quickly in the US with new variants constantly emerging, causing high infection and death rates, and even setting the world record of over 400,000 new infections in a single day.

“Human Life First” is a basic consensus of humanity, but sadly this is not possible in the political environment of the US. Economy and election far outweighed pandemic control. In last year’s presidential election, Trump’s mask-free rallies were a common scene in Michigan, Oklahoma and many states, and it’s to no one’s surprise that each of the many repeated pandemic waves is directly triggered by “reopen” policies at the state or federal levels. Schools and shops must open, otherwise the government may threaten to cut your budget. The consequences are felt in places all over the country – after a short period of reopening, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and other colleges had to suspend offline teaching again due to resurge of infections.

Premature reopening not only hurt the US, but also delayed global progress in containing the pandemic. Most tragically, fairly “open” policies on cross-border travel were also a commonplace in the US. Last August, just as infections hit 20 million globally and 5.2 million alone in the US, the State Department lifted global travel restrictions for US citizens as it believed the pandemic was already contained and that it was necessary to reopen and recover the economy. The statement immediately caused an uproar in countries implementing strict isolation measures. “Although the global travel ban has been lifted, American travelers are not welcome anywhere in the world”, the Capital Hill commented, after Canadian and Australian netizens expressed widespread resistance on social media that “American travelers please keep a distance from us”.

Their worries were not without reason, as reality has shown how the world has sacrificed as America opens itself up. Statistics of the US National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO) shows that 23.195 million American citizens traveled to different parts of the world by land and air between April 2020 and March 2021. Interestingly, the epidemic in the US reached its peak between November 2020 and January 2021, with a shocking 186,000 daily infections on average, matching perfectly the peak level of outbound travels of the US, which amounted to a daily average of 87,000 people.

The result was the quick spread of American infections to the whole world. According to media reports, 70% of the infections in Israel have their virus strains imported from the US. Among Korea’s 7,000 imported cases, 30% were from the US; and in Australia, 14% of its over 6,000 cases were imported from the US.

In the meantime, the US has intensified repatriation of illegal immigrants, worsening the COVID-19 situation of Latin American countries. Guatemala, Jamaica, Mexico and Haiti have all reported a large number of cases among US repatriates. In Guatemala alone, 50-75% of those repatriated from the US were tested positive. In a flight carrying 76 Guatemalans repatriated from the US, 71 were tested COVID-19 positive. Making matters worse, not complying with local COVID-19 rules, US soldiers stationed in Japan and South Korea also amplified the virus’ local transmission.

The “open” policies may seem to have brought “freedom” to American citizens, it has actually set the virus free. The US allowed the virus to spread to the entire world and ravage public health. A simple question one may ask is, will Americans be able to enjoy their “freedom” when the whole world is unsafe?

Countries ought to share their COVID control experience and vaccines with the world, instead of spreading the virus to the world. “I would say it’s not the fairest”, said American epidemiologist Eric Ding. “The (Bloomberg) ranking gives extra weight to countries that have minimal restrictions, as opposed to countries that have most successfully contained the virus and most successfully allowed people to live their lives after they’ve contained the virus, and that’s the problem of the index”.

This is not just unfair. American politicians’ pursuit of “freedom” for their own political benefits brought catastrophic consequences to the US and the rest of the world. People’s freedom to issue pre-warnings and speak out the truth are under strict control by the US government.

According to The New York Times, Dr. Helen Chu, an infectious disease expert in Seattle, found out about the first American coronavirus case in late January last year but was later silenced. Last February, the White House asked US officials and health department experts to obtain prior approval from the Office of Mike Pence before publicly speaking about the pandemic. In March last year, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention deleted the two columns of the total number of people tested and the total number of deaths from the datasheet, and stopped publishing important figures such as the number of people tested, the number of people tested negative and the confirmed cases in various states on the grounds of “inaccurate data.” In April last year, Capt. Brett Crozier of the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt was fired after writing a blunt letter warning “sailors do not need to die” from the coronavirus. Last May, the state of Florida announced on its website that as early as January 1 last year, 171 people in the state had symptoms of the coronavirus, and none of them had been to China, but the above information was quickly removed.

A series of facts have shown that American “openness” and “freedom” are nowhere to be found when it comes to whistleblowers who attempts to speak out the truth.

But by playing the geopolitical taking advantage of the pandemic, the US may delay the revelation of truth at best, it will certainly not cover the truth forever. A little over a year ago, WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier urged countries to re-investigate records for suspicious pneumonia cases of unspecified origin in late 2019, since this would give a “new and clearer picture” of the outbreak. Today, after two years, the world is calling for a reinvestigation into the US on the origin of the virus.

The US is a stop the world can’t afford to miss when it comes to origin tracing and virus transmission.

Contributed by Yusheng and Datou from the official Wechat account of Poquanle.

Translated by Jiaming Liu.

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