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Naming the Wuhan Coronavirus
Zaire ebolavirus: This terrible disease was named after the country in which it was first discovered, Zaire, now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Wuhan coronavirus: This not-so-terrible disease was named after the city, Wuhan, China, in which the first outbreak was identified and from which the disease is believed to have spread.
Neither Zaire ebolavirus nor Wuhan coronavirus is a “racist” term, but there are a few ways in which the terms differ.
1. The government of Zaire made no effort to hide the virus that plagued their people. In contrast, the government of China destroyed evidence of the virus, imprisoned doctors who reported on the virus, suppressed information about the virus, limited travel within China while allowing travel abroad and denying that the virus could be spread by humans, and continues to this day to make up stories about the origin of the virus in an attempt to blame others (Italy, the US Army, etc.) for the virus.
2. There was never any political utility to calling out people who said Zaire ebolavirus. In contrast, it was useful to accuse President Trump of being a racist because he referred to the Wuhan coronavirus as having a Chinese origin — even though the press routinely called it “the Wuhan coronavirus” until that phrase became politically toxic.
3. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is pretty much a geopolitical “nothingburger,” as Hillary Clinton liked to say of whichever recent scandal she’d brought on herself. In contrast, China is a hugely powerful international money machine that gives a lot of cash to U.S. universities and, perhaps coincidentally, President Biden’s no good son Hunter.
I got accused of using “racist language” today when I called the Wuhan coronavirus the “Wuhan coronavirus.” That isn’t racist language. It’s only even controversial because the Chinese government is a vicious totalitarian monster that enslaves Muslim minorities, tortures and murders dissidents with impunity, engages in international theft and corruption on an almost unimaginable scale — and is perceived by soft-headed leftists as sufficiently “anti-Trump” to be worthy of honor and protection.
Published in Politics
I have settled on “Wuhan Lab Flu”. I like to remind folks of the true origin. “Fauci Flu” is pretty catchy, but it would confuse people.
The Epoch Times uses the term “CCP Virus”, but they have an axe to grind.
@henryracette
I wrote about this a year ago, and thoroughly mauled the stupid line about Wuhan Coronavirus being racist:
https://ricochet.com/731537/if-saying-wuhan-coronavirus-is-racist/
Thanks for the reminder. And your post was a good one. I wanted to badmouth the Chinese government a little more emphatically.
As the HR department has informed me it is not what you said or how you meant it but how the people listening it feel about what you said. Thus by today’s standards you are a racist because a protected class individual feels what you said is racist.
I accept that.
Hank, I wonder how much trouble you could get in if you suffered from Montezuma’s Revenge. I think that you’d be in the clear with the German measles.
And how do they know what you said is racist? By the color of your skin.
There is a long list of infectious disease named for locations
Named after the West Nile District of Uganda discovered in 1937.
Named by European explorers for the Guinea coast of West Africa in the 1600s.
Named after the mountain range spreading across western North America first recognized first in 1896 in Idaho.
Named after a large outbreak of the disease occurred in Lyme and Old Lyme, Connecticut in the 1970s.
Named after a mosquito found to cause the disease in the Ross River of Queensland, Australia by the 1960s. The first major outbreak occurred in 1928.
Named after its 1940s discovery in Omsk, Russia.
Named in 1976 for the Ebola River in Zaire located in central Africa.
Also known as “camel flu,” MERS was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and all cases are linked to those who traveled to the Middle Eastern peninsula.
Valley Fever earned its nickname from a 1930s outbreak San Joaquin Valley of California, though its first case came from Argentina.
Named after Marburg, Germany in 1967.
Named after Norwalk, Ohio after an outbreak in 1968.
First discovered in 1947 and named after the Zika Forest in Uganda.
Named after its first case in Japan in 1871.
Named after the German doctors who first described it in the 18th century. The disease is also sometimes referred to as “Rubella.”
While the true origins of the Spanish Flu remain unknown, the disease earned its name after Spain began to report deaths from the flu in its newspapers.
Named after the being found in Lassa, Nigeria in 1969.
But now it’s wrong and un Woke, because it may cause distress or harm to someone or some such rot.
Depends on how the offended protected class person takes it. If they take it as racist then you are a racist if it upsets their perceived sexual orientation then that is your issue. It is all about the perception of the offended person.
The editors, as is their wont and their right, changed the title of this post from what I originally wrote, Chinabug, to something more descriptive.
Personally, I think Chinabug captures my growing disdain for this virus, and my growing conviction that it’s been wildly overblown, so I think I’ll try to popularize the term. ;)
Few people claim it’s racist to use the phrase “Brazil variant”, and nobody claims it’s racist to use the phrase “UK Variant”.
Ironic.
Fauci’s Flu
It’s not even the Wuhan coronavirus. Because it was engineered by the US government. Or so some folks have recently tried to tell me.
I’ll go out on a limb here and share this link on the virus origins – it is what it is, and given the cleansing of any media not ‘acceptable’ to big tech, this may not last so read it while you can and draw your own conclusions:
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/05/05/us-funded-lab-helped-chinese-bioterrorism-program.aspx?ui=0b10245d59396dacb0f0af0ff78a12084fe3d3e6878dfccc168ac133cbe2726b&sd=20200212&cid_source=dnl&cid_medium=email&cid_content=art1HL&cid=20210505_HL2&mid=DM876366&rid=1150016862
It was a dual effort.
Chinabug: It’s a deadly disease and a dinner delicacy in one.
You forgot a couple:
Disco Fever
Discovered in New York nightclubs in the ‘70s. Luckily, it was cured by advances in music.
Spring Fever
An age-old disease with no known cure. It is seasonal and usually disappears in the fall.
Why not call it what it was designed for? Trump killer flu 2020
Whoever accused you probably has subconscious bias against Asians themselves, and they’re projecting it onto you. In other words, they think that if they themselves used that terminology, it would be because of their own bias, so it must be the same with you.
You know, the kind of person who loves to show off by switching to a Spanish accent in the middle of a sentence to pronounce a Spanish place name, but who would think it would be racist to switch to a Chinese accent to pronounce a Chinese place name.
LOLing out loud! I love your closing comment. Very funny.