China’s state-run Global Times trashed former Vice President Joe Biden’s coronavirus plans Wednesday, sneering that “masking, vaccinations, and opening schools” would not be enough to “effectively improve the U.S.’ novel coronavirus dilemma.”
The Global Times claimed that health care in many American states is “on the verge of collapse” and coronavirus patients are supposedly being abandoned to “survive by virtue of their own self-healing ability.”
The Communist Party paper touted China’s purportedly superior ability to control the pandemic and scoffed at Americans for thinking vaccines could save them:
When the epidemic in the US continues to rage, Biden’s three soft goals signal that the US has no interest in combating the spread of the deadly disease. Many highly educated people in China are clearly aware that these three steps are essential to prevent and treat infectious diseases — controlling the source of infection, cutting off the route of transmission, and protecting vulnerable populations. Among Biden’s three goals, masking can be roughly seen as trying to cut off the route of transmission. How about the others? To put it bluntly, Biden is betting on the COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus] vaccine supply.
But what is a vaccine? A vaccine is for people who are not infected. How many vaccines can be produced globally? US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has already announced that “scaling up the raw material supply chain took longer than expected, and it’s important to highlight that the outcome of the clinical trial was somewhat later than the initial projection.” The World Health Organization has also warned that vaccine alone will not end the pandemic.
For a situation as serious as that in the US, it especially requires treating every identified case, setting up makeshift hospitals, and conducting massive and rapid COVID-19 tests. However, Biden did not mention any of the three things at all. Then how can vaccines alone solve the US situation?
After pausing to sneer at President Donald Trump and his supporters for allegedly refusing to wear masks and foolishly thinking vaccines are useless — right after several paragraphs of hooting that vaccines are useless — the Global Times homed in on the real problem with America’s response to the pandemic: stubborn insistence upon individual rights and resistance to authoritarianism.
“The essence of such behavior is that some American politicians are unwilling to sacrifice short-term political interests for long-term public interests. To put it bluntly, they are afraid of offending certain groups of people and they have no political responsibility. Most American politicians are thinking about how to maximize their own benefits in the short run. They want to do their job in an easy way. Such a mind-set is already deeply ingrained in their logic,” the Chinese paper lectured.
The Global Times scoffed at the U.S. for thinking the could develop “herd immunity” to the Wuhan coronavirus, predicting a vast number of deaths if the American people keep resisting the unspecified authoritarian measures China sees as the only effective response to the pandemic. The editorial never gets more detailed than its vague reference to “controlling the source of infection, cutting off the route of transmission, and protecting vulnerable populations.”
“Biden’s three public health goals did not touch on the essence of the COVID-19 fight that has worked in so many other countries. The American people’s mind-set will also pose great challenges to the country’s future fight against this ruthless killer. The prospects are not optimistic now,” the Global Times predicted.
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