Pompeo faces ire for stigmatizing COVID-19

Medical professionals and commentators urge world to focus on fighting outbreak

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Fox News host Jesse Watters have drawn fire for turning a deaf ear to repeated warnings by the World Health Organization against stigmatization in the global fight against COVID-19.

In a State Department news briefing on March 5, Pompeo called the novel coronavirus the "Wuhan virus", ignoring the designation by the WHO when it named the novel coronavirus pneumonia COVID-19 on Feb 11.

The WHO said it wanted to avoid referring to the virus by a geographical location, an animal, an individual or group of people.

"Having a name matters to prevent the use of other names that can be inaccurate or stigmatizing," WHO's Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a news conference on Monday: "In an open, transparent and responsible manner, China has kept the WHO and relevant countries and regions, including the US, informed of the outbreak in a timely manner."

China strongly condemns US politicians for disrespecting science, scorning the WHO and denigrating efforts to contain the virus, Geng said.

With COVID-19 reported in more countries, including a growing number of cases in the United States, the WHO has urged countries to seize the opportunity created by China's massive containment measures.

However, Watters, a co-host of The Five roundtable program on Fox News, showed little concern about the spread of COVID-19 in the US and the lack of preparedness by its government. Instead he said on March 2, "I'd like to just ask the Chinese for a formal apology.

"This coronavirus originated in China, and I have not heard one word from the Chinese. A simple 'I'm sorry' would do. It would go a long way'," he said, while other participants of the popular program chuckled.

Dana Perino, another co-host and former White House press secretary, interrupted him, asking what if the virus had originated in the US.

COVID-19 was first reported in Wuhan, but there has been no scientific evidence so far to conclude that the virus originated in Wuhan or other parts of China.

Bruce Aylward, a Canadian epidemiologist and leader of the WHO-China Joint Mission on COVID-19, told China Daily in Geneva on Saturday that the virus originated in nature.

Factors such as growing population, eroding environment and climate change are all contributing to such zoonotic diseases that pass from animal to human, he said, "and this will continue to happen anywhere in the world."

Aylward returned from China where he was part of a joint mission comprising 25 top international and Chinese experts, including some from the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.

"The important thing is that we work together to try to find a solution," he said. The Chinese commitment to international solidarity in the face of things like this is what's important because the next one is going to arrive somewhere else."

Bernard Dewit, the chairman of the Belgian-Chinese Chamber of Commerce, also said that the problem now is not where the virus originated, but that people unite to fight it.

Aylward said: "The world is confronted with the disease. So, instead of arguing with each other, we have to do our best to eliminate the virus. China has taken very strong measures, which is a very positive reaction."

David Gosset, the founder of the Europe-China Forum, said the demand for an apology by Watters is absurd since it presupposes that an entire country was responsible for the emergence of a virus and of its propagation around the world.

Han Baoyi in Geneva and Xinhua contributed to the story.