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Comment by radicalbyte | Hacker News Reader

The the American leadership constantly calling it by the region name you can understand why an authoritarian regime would want to control discussion of the origins by experts. The risk is of their research being weaponized by said demagogues.

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I was under the impression that they started intentionally calling it the Wuhan virus only after the Chinese government started making propaganda that the virus came form aboard.

Other way around. People started saying it was developed by the Chinese as a weapon almost immediately, and the originator of the "Chinese propaganda" specifically called out such claims before blaming the US.

We are talking about politicians specifically though.

Still, a congressman blamed the Chinese on TV before the start of the Lijian twitter incident.

They started calling it the Chinese virus after that, Wuhan virus was earlier (if you are referring to the NYT timeline article from yesterday).

My understanding is that intentionally misnaming the virus/disease is done to mock perceived political correctness. Particularly after the WHO officially named it SARS-CoV2/COVID-19, if someone on twitter referred to the virus/disease as "Chinese coronavirus"/"Wuhan virus"/etc, someone would usually respond saying that such language was xenophobic. This happens to a few prominent people, screenshots are made, screenshots are shared around, people pile in on one side or the other, the issue quickly becomes partisan. In the end, right-leaning media/individuals/presidents coalesce and intentionally emphasize the Chinese origin as a protest against perceived oversensitivity.

Normally I'm loathe to suggest that things which happen on twitter direct wider social discourse, but I believe this is the most accurate characterization of events in this case.

Bear in mind also, China put out a video in Italy just before the outbreak encouraging Italians to hug Chinese tourists because they were suffering from "xenophobia" due to the virus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNMdg4morQs&feature=youtu.be

That video ... didn't age well, shall we say.

And here's a virologist claiming political correctness slowed Italy's response to the virus:

https://www.theblaze.com/news/italy_political_correctness_ch...

Conservatives in general have developed into an opposition to globalism ("one world government"), a cause the left has championed since the earliest days of the COMINTERN. It's not a huge surprise that they'd emphasise the origins of the virus and nature of the local government there, especially given the recommended course of action is strong border control.

The WHO is an especially clear example of what "one world government" looks like, and there's an established history of criticism of the WHO from conservatives dating back long before COVID-19. For instance in this article:

https://www.forbes.com/2010/02/05/world-health-organization-...

it's alleged that the WHO changed its own definition of pandemic so swine flu would qualify, massively exaggerated its impact and deadliness vs normal flu, lied about its own change of definitions and that its chief gave a speech using swine flu to promote various hard-left ideas in e.g. this quote (but there are others from the same speech)

https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2009/euro_regional_committee...

"Leaders in sectors with far more clout than health are making a similar point. At the April G20 summit in London, world leaders called for a fundamental re-engineering of the international systems to incorporate a moral dimension and make them responsive to genuine social values and concerns. They voiced a need to invest these systems with values like community, solidarity, equity, and social justice. While this is welcome new thinking for world leaders, this is a familiar vocabulary for public health"

I don't think it actually makes sense to use names based on where a virus was first detected, but it's also pretty common and of course diseases named after the people who first found them is even more common. But there's far more background to this than mere reaction against over-sensitivity. Respiratory viruses have a history of being exaggerated and used to push for certain political ideas.

Bill Maher has an amusing monologue on that topic [1]. I don't think it is wrong to call it the Wuhan virus, and if the Chinese don't want the bad publicity associated with the virus, they should do something about these wet markets.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEfDwc2G2_8

On the other hand we did not call the "Swine Flu" the "North American flu"

It’s called Mexican flu in Dutch.

Watch the video, he cites loads of examples.

Hilariously it was the CCP that pushed the Wuhan virus name in the first place, instead of SARS-like which was what the doctors were calling it, so as to not appear incompetent for having repeated the mistakes of SARS and in order to distance themselves and make sure it's the local baeurucrats that take the blunt of the heat.

Then they went on claiming everything was good again, 0 new cases nationally, so the head honchos could take credit for showing leadership and whatnot. Now they're blaming new cases on foreigners, especially Africans, most of whom never even left the country since this whole ordeal started both to stoke nationalism + rally around the flag effect and so as to evade responsibility for not actually having stopped it yet.

This and similar monologues do get one important things wrong. The big one on the list - Spanish Flu - likely didn't come from Spain [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic#Hypotheses_a...

I think this is completely missing the point. I believe it was named the Spanish flu as this is where it was first reported. That we learned later on that it originated from somewhere else is completely irrelevant. The point is that it was named after where it was believed to be first observed.

The same Bill Maher who wanted a major recession to bring down Trump?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3SjtG5lwOI

Maybe we should stop listening to these people?

Given that this clamping down came about earlier than any discussion of this matter by the American leadership, I don't think that's a good explanation for this.

*Reading this comment again, perhaps I should have phrased it more carefully - I'm not saying that any clamping down that is happening now has come earlier, but that China started clamping down on this from the very beginning.

Are you suggesting the virus didn't originate in Wuhan?

Wuhan.

typo, updated.

According to the deleted research center job and notice postings in November and December it allegedly originated in Hunan among bats, and they collected it and brought it back to the Wuhan lab.

it is always curious to me that the west, and particularly the united states, refuse to believe their own actions and behavior don't affect the behavior of other countries. the united states has been ignoring this effect for years in practically every conflict for the past 70 years.

people should start taking a stronger look at their own countries. the united states' leadership doesn't even have clear propaganda or a goal. they're just making it all up as they go, which is worse in my opinion.

this toddler-level blame game is a major threat to the national security and economy in the united states.

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