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Covid 19: Who is to be blamed?



COVID-19 has brought catastrophic trouble to Europe. The outbreak is now being ranked only second to the world wars. Unsurprisingly, the world looks at the problem with its focus at finding the core of it. The genesis of the devil called Corona. As usual, President Trump is taking lead assigning the blame. US President Donald Trump has mentioned of COVID-19 as ‘Chinese Virus' to bring discomfort to many.

 Those in support of Trump have given examples of the Spanish Flu in 1918 that claimed anywhere between 20-50 million lives. The Spanish flu infected an estimated 500 million people, which was approximately one-third of the then global population. Examples of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome also connected it to the territory it originated from.

Those supporting China have the current global order based on free market capitalism to blame Corona upon. It is for them the right moment to strike, to dilute all the gains and concentrate upon the flaws that US led current global order extended in past decades. Then, we have a third aspect of assigning the blame, the one of human cruelty to other living beings. This group terms Chinese eating habits not only cruel and insane but ‘devilish’. For them, Nature has its way of turning things around. To their relief, Ozone layer has shown unprecedented improvement to heal to its normal state.

It is not the first time that China has invented a virus in its territory. The SARS outbreak of 2003 is well known to the world. The most interesting of arguments blames the virus on the authoritarian nature of the Chinese regime, on its tendency to curtail flow of discomforting information. It will be too soon to pronounce any final verdict as to what led to the worsening global crisis we see around us and too naive to consider the corona outbreak business as usual because it is not. Corona has come with the ability that may leave a profound effect on the current global order which may change it in a fundamental manner. At this point, assigning blame should be a secondary issue. It doesn’t help anyone.

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