Letters | Don’t revive the toxic rhetoric that China is spreading Covid-19

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At last China has ditched its zero-Covid policy, leading to an expected surge in cases and causing concern among countries over the virus spreading. Really? When the virus is already so widespread?

Case in point: Japan now requires Covid-19 tests for travellers from China. But to justify such an imposition by citing the widespread infections in China would ignore the resurgence in cases in Japan since October last year, with numbers nearing the peak reached in August last year.

As for the US, the basis for its imposition is that China has stopped publishing its daily case count. Fair enough, but China’s argument, that the numbers will be inaccurate as there is no more mandatory testing, is also reasonable.

While there have been shortcomings of late in China’s handling of the pandemic, one has to remain objective. Reviving the rhetoric that the country spreads the virus is dangerous, and not conducive to healing the divisions that this pandemic made more evident. Can’t we just go back to business?