EDITORIAL-SG: The Straits Times says: World must unite to flatten the curve
The Straits Times
Four months into the year, the world’s worst public health crisis has killed over 65,000 people, infected more than a million others and forced half of humanity to stay indoors. An economic crisis of equal magnitude is hatching. Yet, a globally coordinated response to Covid-19 is missing in action. Notably, the world’s two largest economies, which command sizeable resources and wield uniquely persuasive powers, have chosen not to join forces. At their March 26 summit, the leaders of the Group of 20 industrialised nations tried to muster a global response but found their efforts hampered by the mistrust between Beijing and Washington. The United States, the scene of the largest outbreak now, and China, which fears a rebound, have much to gain themselves and share with others if they were to pull together.
They have been there and done that. Six years ago, when Ebola was the terror of Africa, the US and Chinese teams worked in tandem at a Chinese laboratory in Sierra Leone. In the aftermath of the severe acute respiratory syndrome or Sars epidemic that ravaged East Asia in 2002-2003, the US and China established a joint programme to swop information and train healthcare professionals. When the H1N1 swine flu spread across the globe in 2009, they were able to work together to develop a vaccine which China then mass produced. In the 2013 H7N9 avian flu epidemic, China and the US again collaborated to develop, mass produce and distribute worldwide the essential test kits and vaccines. Likewise, when the sub-prime crisis exploded in 2008, the two worked in sync against financial contagion.
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Such cooperation has been modest in this outbreak. A planeload of masks and other protective gear from China arrived in the US last week, reciprocating earlier US gestures. More headlines have been made, instead, by inflammatory rhetoric which has thwarted wholehearted and multidimensional collaboration. Scientists are finding ways to share and combine resources but policymakers have not followed suit nor taken the lead. Over the past weeks, US officials approved a draft rule to prevent Chinese companies from procuring dual use technology and President Donald Trump signed off on a law extending diplomatic support for Taiwan in a move resented by China.
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This, clearly, is the time to shelve narrow world views and summon missionary zeal to address the scourge. As the leaders of Germany, Jordan, Ethiopia, Ecuador and Singapore noted in an article last week, not a single global entity covers the medical, economic and political elements required to produce a vaccine for all. “We must assemble a truly global alliance to mobilise human ingenuity and solidarity,” they said. Once the pandemic is brought under control, livelihoods must be saved and the ecosystem of interdependent economies revived. There is but one urgent threat for all now, the US and China cannot stand apart.
