Opinion | If China fails to contain the coronavirus outbreak, the price will be paid by all

The Chinese government must overcome its isolationist instincts and start sharing more information with health experts and scientists abroad, including those from the US. Greater transparency and cooperation are needed to tackle a looming global epidemic

Reading Time:4 minutes

Published: 3:00am, 1 Feb 2020Updated: 6:52pm, 15 Feb 2020

Nature has never respected human-made geographic boundaries. Despite a lockdown of some 60 million people at the epicentre of the novel coronavirus outbreak in Hubei, China, the epidemic has already spread to at least 17 other countries and territories in the course of only a few weeks.

For all the talk of decoupling, the virus outbreak reminds us yet again how interconnected the world really is. Ten years ago, most people would not have known about or visited Wuhan, and certainly so many people from this city of 11 million would not have travelled widely around the world. From health epidemics to wildfires, to the effects of climate change, what happens on one side of the planet now rapidly affects people half a world away.

In the highly polarised political world we live in today, however, the risk of an epidemic is even greater than a public health threat.

Isolationists, who have been gaining ground in the US, Britain and elsewhere, may use this current crisis as yet another reason to cut themselves off from the rest of the world by building walls, undermining international institutions and pursuing unilateral agendas.

On the surface, countries certainly need to physically cut off the movement of possibly infected people to contain the virus. Major airlines including British Airways and Lufthansa have already halted all flights to and from China, and US carriers are following suit.

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