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Spanish – The virus that is killing people all over the world is a Chinese virus. The Chinese dictatorship silences whoever it wants; the people have no freedom. And the same dictatorship is responsible for the virus that could be controlled early on but was hidden until the whole world was already in danger.
The Chinese dictatorship had the chance to save thousands of people -their own citizens and across the world. But what it decided to do when the time was right was to destroy samples, suppress the evidence, and above all, cover up what was happening.
By December 2019, Chinese laboratories had identified the new, highly infectious virus that was already wreaking havoc in China. The dictatorship prevented scientists from doing the right thing: alerting the world, releasing the information they had, and thus allowing scientists and experts around the globe to quickly begin work on a vaccine and the measures needed to stop the spread.
In Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, the dictatorship ordered the destruction of laboratory samples that explained the cause of viral pneumonia suffered by the local people in early January. It was almost a month later when they finally acknowledged that the disease was spreading through person-to-person transmission.
Those weeks, when the Chinese dictatorship hid everything, were crucial to prevent the pandemic that is killing people all over the world today. All through January, the authorities in China denied that this ailment was spreading through human contagion.
It must be emphasized that the Chinese dictatorship is so brutal and malevolent that it did what it could to silence even those heroic doctors and scientists who defied orders and began to alert the world about the gravity of the matter.
The best-known story today is perhaps that of Dr. Li Wenliang. In late December, the doctor at Wuhan Central Hospital began warning his medical school classmates about a new contagious virus that resembled the deadly SARS that spread from China to different countries in early 2000 and left hundreds of people dead.
Thanks to Dr. Li, news of the virus began to spread, and he was immediately arrested by the dictatorship. After a few days, he was released, but not before being forced to sign a document in which he had to accept that he had committed an illegal act by making “false statements” on social media. He also promised to “reflect seriously” on his “mistakes.”
After publicly humiliating Dr. Li, the Wuhan police spoke on Chinese state television to warn people of the dangers of “spreading rumors.” And from that day on, for several weeks, all the state media asked the Chinese people not to believe the rumors circulating on the internet.
After his release, Dr. Li returned to work in Wuhan hospitals full of coronavirus patients. He was infected and died at the age of 34, leaving behind a pregnant wife and a small child. Today, he should be remembered as a hero who was persecuted and silenced by a dictatorship that does not care about putting its people and the whole world at risk.
Like Dr. Li, other doctors were persecuted and silenced. For example, on January 1, the Wuhan Public Security Bureau intervened to question eight doctors who posted information about the disease on WeChat.
The Chinese dictatorship even promoted the Chinese Lunar New Year banquet in late January, where millions of people pass through the country visiting their relatives. The authorities knew weeks earlier that a highly contagious virus was spreading and that many people would be infected during the celebrations.
On January 23, as the Wall Street Journal reports, approximately five million people left Wuhan without being tested for the disease.
Even today, prominent Chinese citizens who criticize their government’s response to the pandemic seem to disappear suddenly.
What the Chinese dictatorship has done is an attack on humanity. They hid information, destroyed samples, stopped tests, denied for weeks what they already knew: a virus was killing people. But not only did they hide what was happening, but they also took no action to prevent the deadly virus from spreading around the world.
A study published in March concluded that if the Chinese dictatorship had acted three weeks earlier, taking appropriate measures, preventing, and isolating those infected, the number of cases of contagion could have been reduced by 95%, and their geographical spread would have been limited.
Astonishingly enough, after all this, China presents itself to the world as an example of effective disease management and offers help to other countries in dealing with the virus. They even claim to have found the vaccine for the coronavirus.
All that is left now is for us to believe the story that China is an example of something, and portray the country like the hero who built hospitals in days and then developed a vaccine even before the United States.
Let’s be clear: the coronavirus came out of China -just like SARS. China stopped the tests, destroyed the samples, hid information for weeks, and despite knowing how dangerous the virus was, did absolutely nothing to prevent the spread to other countries. China spread the virus.
Now our countries are trying, as best they can, to cope with this tragedy. The forces and energies must be put into saving lives and dealing with the terrible economic crisis that is looming upon us. But the time will come when we will overcome this, and then, we must demand answers from the Chinese dictatorship for what it has done.
For now, we need to be clear that China is not a model of anything and that the coronavirus is a Chinese virus.
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