The only way to fight coronavirus is through international cooperation – not myopic nationalism

Recriminations and accusations about who we got to this place will only prolong the crisis, writes Kim Sengupta

Donald Trump has been criticised for his reaction to the coronavirus pandemic (AFP/Getty)

Faced with coronavirus, the international community would have been expected to rush to create a united front aimed at fighting a pestilence which has caused such alarm that it is being seen as an existential threat.

Instead the inexorable rise of the pandemic has highlighted a divided and rancorous geopolitical landscape, mired in accusations, recriminations and opaqueness with little to indicate that an urgent and effective global response is under way.

Chinese officials not only failed to acknowledge the scale of the problem early on, but tried to silence medical personnel who warned of what was coming. The Iranian establishment downplayed the spread of the disease from the holy Shia city of Qom until it became impossible to hide. Both South Korea and Japan were slower than neighbouring countries in enforcing travel bans from China, and Tokyo failed to deal with the spread of the virus on board the cruise ship Diamond Princess. The European Union is accused of failing to help Italy, the worst affected country in Europe.

And then there is, of course, Donald Trump. The US president had claimed that the virus was a “new hoax” by the Democrats, that it was “ under control,” that it could “have a very good ending for us” and “boost jobs”. He banned travel from the European Union, which he sees as an adversary, and allegedly offered a German company “large sums of money” to ensure that a vaccine it is working on is handed over for the sole use of the US. US officials have largely dismissed the reports.

This is in marked contrast to Barack Obama’s display of leadership during the Ebola outbreak of 2014. Then his administration set up an international summit to address how future epidemics should be treated and created a dedicate unit in the National Security Council to focus on the problem.

The unit was disbanded by the Trump administration two years ago while another body, the US’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has been subject to severe cuts in its epidemic prevention activities.

There have been calls for the leadership vacuum to be filled by the World Health Organisation (WHO). But it starts with the disadvantage of being seen as under undue influence from Beijing with the head of the organisation unwilling to criticise the government in any way for its mishandling of the outbreak.

Declaring its global public-health emergency at the end of last month, WHO’s director-general, Tedros Adhanoum Ghebreyesus, was fulsome in his praise of the Chinese government for its supposed “openness in sharing information” and for “setting a new standard for outbreak control.”

Tedros, from Ethiopia, had been regularly critical of the efforts of other governments to tackle the virus and called on them not to restrict travel to China.

Questioned at the Munich Security Conference last month about rising domestic outrage in China about government suppression of news on Covid-19, he was adamant that criticism was unfair and “China has bought the world time”. In contrast, John Mackenzie, a member of the WHO executive committee, wanted to stress publicly that international reaction would have been far quicker were it not for China’s “reprehensible” lack of candour about the virulent spread of the virus.

There are also questions about the delay by the WHO on declaring a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). It’s emergency committee was split on the issue and with the final decision left to him as the director general, Tedros decided to wait despite being forced to admit that there was now “an emergency in China”. PHEIC was declared the following week: by then Covid-19 had surged tenfold with 7,781 cases in 18 countries.

The worst of the projected monetary, as well as health and cost of coronavirus could, perhaps, be avoided even now with proper international cooperation and leadership. During the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 global trade and economic growth both fell initially by greater volume than the Great Depression. However, governments cooperated, there was coordination. After a hard year, the global economy stabilised, another major depression was avoided and a greater calamity averted.

The difference, as analysts have pointed out, was that nations accepted that disputes have to be set aside, that the need for greater good superseded individual grievances – a fundamentally changed approach from that of the 1930s, a period of virulent political nationalism and beggar-thy-neighbour economic policies.

Covid-19 has come at the time of renewed populism, of Trump, and Brexit, economic warfare and dismantling of multilateral institutions. It has also come with the addition of channelled misinformation and the mantra, propagated in this country more than in most others, that “you can’t believe in experts.”

The sheer scale of what is being faced has, of necessity, led to a degree of liaison, although a very limited one so far, between G7 states. Trump, who holds the rotating presidency, is a reluctant participant. He had to be persuaded to convene a videoconference meeting by European leaders, especially France’s Emmanuel Macron.

There was apprehension that the US President would not agree to the draft of a pre-conference joint statement with memories of him retroactively withdrawing his signature from a G7 communique following the disastrous Quebec summit of 2018.

But with worry growing steeply in America over the virus and even Fox News changing its coverage from accusations of conspiracy to charting a grave crisis, Trump has changed his tone to one of concern.

It would be unwise, however, to depend on the US president to provide the international leadership needed. The G20, not just G7, would surely need to coordinate the response.

There is the imperative for a massive drive to find a vaccine, not just for one country or the wealthiest few, but as widely distributed as possible. Travel restrictions, which can have such a detrimental effect on the global economy if kept in place for too long, could then be gradually eased.

There needs to be the important recognition that a crisis of this proportion can only be faced by an international community acting together and not through narrow, myopic nationalism.