Is the World Going Out of Control or Is God Losing Control?

Is the World Going out of Control or is God Losing Control?

A scriptural perspective to the Wuhan Coronavirus

Khen Lim | March 8 2020

After the many faith articles I have written in the past number of years and the sermons I have done, I know a very difficult one to tackle when I see it. The Wuhan Coronavirus – also known as COVID-19 – that is plaguing the world is a worrisome problem. Talking about it with fellow Christians can be even more problematic due to the contradictory attitudes towards the coronavirus. Meanwhile, fatalities show no signs of waning and it’s hard to know when it will all end.

The other reason why it’s difficult to talk about it is the controversies surrounding the spiritual implications. Exactly what should or do we say about it? Can what we say be construed as insensitive? Can the truth that Christians accept be embraced by the secular world? Will the world hate us for what we believe is the honest truth? In fact, how much of what we know scripturally can be applied in this case?

Let us begin by reading an open letter that a certain Chinese pastor wrote in the midst of the deadly coronavirus. His name is Pastor Tan Songhua and he hails from the Cornerstone Church in the epicentre of the coronavirus itself, Wuhan. His letter has drawn incredible inspiration for many Christians worldwide and I reproduce it here in awe of the fearless stand he makes for Christ. His faithful service to God in the middle of potential persecution, let alone the outbreak, serves a lesson for all of us to take note.

Before reading it, take note that the original letter was written in Simplified Chinese. It is hence possible that the resulting English translation does not retain “the colourful and idiomatic language” typical of the “strong regional context.” By the same token, the translated theological expressions might appear odd or even conflicting but all of these might just be because it’s never easy to fully and even faithfully reflect the pastor’s original writing.

Be that as it may, here is Pastor Tan’s open letter courtesy of John Little of Omegashock.com:

“Peace to brothers and sisters:

In the past few days, Wuhan pneumonia has almost become the centre of my thoughts and life. I always looked for updates, and always thought about how my family and the church should deal with it. As for my family, I stored some masks and food. I tried to go out as little as possible, wear a mask when I went out, and left the rest to God.

On the church side, the safety of meetings, the witness of our faith, and the possibility of members contracting this disease – all pose great challenges to us. Obviously, we are facing a trial of our faith. Even though the situation is so grim, however relying on God’s promise, we believe that what He gave is the mind of ​​giving peace, not the mind of ​​disaster (Jer. 29:11). He allows the trial to come to us, not because He wants to destroy us, but to build us up. Therefore, Christians should not only suffer with the people in this city, but also have the responsibility to pray for this shaken and scared city and bring to them the peace of Christ.

First of all, let the peace of Christ reign in our hearts (Col. 3:15), and let the peace of Christ take control of our hearts (Col. 3:15, new Chinese translation). Christ has already given us His peace, but His peace is not without suffering and death. We have His peace in suffering and death, because Christ has overcome these for us (Jn 14:27, 16:33). Otherwise, what we believe would not be the Gospel of peace (Eph 6:15), and we would panic in this epidemic and despair in the face of death, just like the people in this world.

Why should only Christians have such peace? Because of sin, a man is worthy of any affliction that comes. Jehovah says: The wicked will not have peace (Isa 48:22). We were all wicked, but because of our faith, Jesus bore the penalty of sin for us and gave us His peace. So Paul said, who can accuse God’s chosen ones? God called them righteous (Rom 8:33). Christians face suffering like the rest of the world, but this suffering is no longer a judgment for them, but an opportunity to draw close to God, cleanse the soul, and witness the Gospel.

In other words, when suffering comes to us, it is a way that God loves us. And just like Paul said, who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can suffering? Can difficulty? Can persecution? Can hunger? Can nakedness? Can danger? Can a knife? … But, in the Lord who loves us, we have more than victory in all these things. Because we deeply believe that whether it is death or life or an angel or a demon or a powerful entity or any present thing or things in the future or if its high or if it is low or other creatures, none of them can separate us from the love of God; this love is in our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 8: 35-39).

Applying this to our current situation, this epidemic in Wuhan city cannot separate us from the love of Jesus Christ either. This love is in our Lord Jesus Christ. Such words comfort us very greatly. We have become one with Christ. We take part in His suffering, we also take part in His glory. Everything of Christ becomes ours, and everything of ours becomes Christ’s.

Therefore, Christ is in this city, with us to face this epidemic. The epidemic cannot hurt Him, and it will not hurt us. If we die in this epidemic, we still are witnesses for Christ and have the opportunity to enter into His glory.

Therefore brothers and sisters, I encourage you to be strong, relying on the love of Christ. If we, in this epidemic, experience death more deeply and understand the Gospel more deeply, we will then experience the love of Christ more deeply and be closer to God. Just as our Lord Jesus, through faith experienced cruel death, but God raised Him from the dead and set Him on His right hand side (Acts 2: 32-36).

If after reading all these truths, you still do not have peace, I encourage you to read the Scriptures listed above with all your attention and ask God to make you understand until the peace of Christ rules you. You must know that this is not only a visible disaster, but also an invisible spiritual battle. You must fight for your heart and then for the soul of this city.

I also hope that you will know that a sparrow needs God’s permission to fall to the ground (Mt 10:29). Shouldn’t this be truer for the many lives in Wuhan that face this epidemic? Isn’t what we are experiencing like what Abraham faced with Sodom and like what Jonah faced with Nineveh?

If God would not destroy Sodom because there were righteous people, and not destroy Nineveh [where] there were more than 120,000 who could not distinguish between their left and right hands, what about Wuhan where we are? We are clearly the righteous in this city. And not just one, but there are at least tens of thousands who are righteous. Let us all be as sorrowful as Lot for our cities (1 Pt 2:7), and pray for Sodom as earnestly as Abraham (Gen 18:23-33). You see, Jonah reluctantly preached the Gospel to Nineveh, and the city of Nineveh repented and was saved. We are the Abraham and the Jonah of this city. We must, for Christ, pray for this city to reconcile with God, and for this city, call out for God’s mercy, so that the whole city will receive peace through our prayers and witness.

I believe that this is the mission for which God has called us to live, in Wuhan. We must pray for peace for this city, peace for infected patients, peace for the medical staff at the front line, peace for government staff at all levels, and peace for all people in Wuhan! We can also use the Gospel to guide and comfort relatives and friends through the Internet, reminding them that their lives are not in their own hands, that they must entrust their lives to the faithful God.

In the past few days, I have received greetings from many [Chinese] pastors outside of Wuhan. They and their churches care about this city, and even more about us. They are facing this epidemic with us and serving this city with us.

Therefore, I strongly invite you to turn your eyes to the Lord Jesus, and no longer worry about your safety, and no longer lose heart, but pray in the name of the Lord Jesus. The kind people of the world are using their actions to serve the city, especially the medical staff who risk their lives. They are carrying worldly responsibilities, shouldn’t we bear even more spiritual responsibilities!

If you do not have the burden of prayer, ask the Lord to give you a heart that loves souls and prays earnestly; if you do not cry, ask the Lord to give you tears. Because we deeply know that only the mercy of the Lord is the salvation of this city.

Tan Songhua

January 23, 2020”

Translation admirably provided by Mrs. Little

NOTE: Words bolded are my emphasis

The Wuhan Coronavirus needs little to no introduction. Unless you’ve been hiding in some truly remote cave, it’s unlikely that you do not know something about it. But even so, let’s take the opportunity to run through some of what we understand about the coronavirus.

Basic definition

I call it the Wuhan Coronavirus but the World Health Organisation would like us to refer to it as COVID-19, which is short for COronaVIrus Disease 2019. This change of naming sentiment is probably made under pressure from the veto-wielding Chinese who are doing all they can to dissociate themselves from the coronavirus. Call it what you want but it’s political correctness at its worst. But no matter the dissociation, the coronavirus itself does not discriminate. Beyond China, its lethality has taken on the rest of the world with a sense of vengeance that is frightening in its pace and spread. As for the latest numbers, we’ll look at them later.

The ‘corona’ part of its name refers to its visual resemblance to a royal crown. The word itself – ‘corona’ – is Latin for ‘crown’ or tiara, the royal official headgear that kings and queens wear. The way the word is used here is to refer to the crown of spikes that helps attach the pathogen into the human biology and send its deadly payload to kill. While it looks rather spectacular in all the dressed-up images we’ve been seeing, it is hardly impressive in what it does to humans.

Being a member of the wider coronavirus family means it is related to the common flu as much as it is to SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and MERS (Middle-East Respiratory Syndrome) in that they are all respiratory based. The Wuhan variety kills by stifling the host body of much-needed air, which makes it strikingly similar to pneumonia. That might explain why it wasn’t difficult for the Chinese authorities to misreport at least some of the cases, calling it pneumonia instead of the Wuhan Coronavirus.

Hence the many widely touted claims that plenty of fatalities have actually gone under the radar, meaning they have not been added to the official count. While the current ‘official’ death toll is frightening enough, many are saying that the real figure is far worse. But if we are bogged down by numerous unreported cases in China, then what we currently are told is largely misrepresented.

The Wuhan Coronavirus’ close cousin, SARS, appeared in 2002-2003, killing 775 people amidst 8,098 confirmed cases. We thought 775 was a huge figure but the Wuhan strain is now manifold worse. Unlike the geographically-distant MERS, SARS hit home far closer. I recall how SARS frightened the living daylights out of so many of us. Remember, even without social media back then, news of SARS approaching was alarming enough. One can imagine the pandemonium if Facebook or WhatsApp was available then.

Like SARS, the Wuhan Coronavirus originated from China but we’ll talk more about this later.

One of the most outstanding aspects of the Wuhan Coronavirus is its symptoms. Unlike anything we’ve seen in the past, the symptoms here are as unpredictable as they are confusing and worrying. It appears right from the outset that medical experts including those from the World Health Organisation (W.H.O.) haven’t the foggiest idea. All this while, the incubation period – meaning the time a person is infected to the time his symptoms show – was said to be anything from 1 to 14 days. We now know that to be false because it looks more like 25 days but even this new claim might not last for long but it’s lengthy enough to cause all sorts of worries.

Even at 14 days, most of the quarantine facilities available in different parts of the world cannot cope. The U.K. has just begun to find out that they’re running out of beds to accommodate suspected and confirmed cases simply because 14 days is too long to hold up a bed. Unless the patient shows symptoms much earlier – say, 3 days – hospital resources will be stretched to the maximum. At 25 days, it just isn’t plausible to expect quarantine facilities to cope especially if confirmed cases keep mounting.

Before the person even gets to be quarantined, the problem with an unpredictably long incubation period is that he could be infecting others without realising it. And he can be doing that anytime up to 25 days virtually undetected! This problem is what is occurring today with worrying clusters created out of nothing. It explains how and why Italy has become a hot epicentre for European infections.

Let’s assume a person who holidayed abroad in a place that is known to have confirmed cases returns to home soil unaware that he’s been infected. Of course, he has no way of telling because the symptoms are not yet apparent. And let’s also assume that he’s not interested in getting himself self-quarantined because he believes he is not infected since he hasn’t been anywhere near the so-called viral hotspots. So, he’s been up and about everywhere, attending meetings, joining up with friends in clubs and restaurants and then having dinners with the family and others. Throw in the times he went supermarket shopping during the weekends when the crowds are inescapable.

Because, in this example, the person is already infected before he headed home. That means he’s carrying the Wuhan Coronavirus even though he didn’t go to Wuhan or China for that matter. However, where he visited, he was in at least one area in which someone carried the disease and was near enough to pass it to him without him realising it.

Now that he has become a carrier himself, he has brought the coronavirus home and has been freely spreading it around undetected mainly because he has not shown any symptoms and he has chosen not to have himself quarantined. Because he might be able to do this for 25 straight days, it is unimaginable how many different places he can go in that period of time not to mention the number of people he will have come in contact with.

Some reports have suggested that in such cases, once the symptoms become apparent, it might be quite serious already. That, I believe, was what happened to the whistleblower, the late Dr Li Wenliang, who initially appeared fine but once his symptoms showed and he was hospitalised, it did not take long for the coronavirus to claim his life.

What this means, of course, is that trouble emerges the moment the symptoms surface. Experts tell us that these may be mild, moderate or serious symptoms and yet that person can still succumb. In very serious cases, pneumonia can set in rather quite quickly and then develop into something that looks like SARS. If by then, the patient cannot be stabilised, his vital organs – such as his kidneys – can begin to fail. Quite tragically then, death won’t be far along.

 Deadliness and contagiousness

Not that long ago, many in the medical community were looking to benchmark the Wuhan Coronavirus against SARS for two reasons that I know. One is that was all there was to compare with. The other is that SARS was not too long ago and it was truly a frightening experience. Figures available online tell us that from 8,098 positive cases, 775 died from SARS. Whatever that figure does or doesn’t do to you, its deadliness really hit very close to home. From Singapore, we heard terrible stories that would make your skin crawl.

But benchmarking SARS proved underwhelming because it didn’t take long before the Wuhan Coronavirus showed what a ‘superior’ spreader it now is and along the way, its death toll put it clearly in the shade. By February, it was evident that the Wuhan Coronavirus was in a completely different league of its own. Let’s look at some of the current figures:

SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome)

Wuhan Coronavirus (at 12pm, Feb 29 2020)

Date: November 2002 to July 2003 Total confirmed cases: 8,098 Total confirmed deaths: 775

Date: Late 2019 (actual date is disputable) Total confirmed cases: 85,179 China-only unconfirmed cases: 79,251 Non-mainland-China confirmed cases: 5,928 Total unconfirmed deaths: 2,920 China-only unconfirmed deaths: 2,835 Non-mainland-China confirmed deaths: 85* * Deaths outside mainland China comprise the following: Iran (34), Italy (21), South Korea (13), Diamond Princess (6), Japan (5), France (2), Hong Kong (2), Philippines (1) and Taiwan ROC (1)

By comparison (above), the Wuhan Coronavirus figures are damning. Far worse then that we realise there is no stopping or containing it for now. To put it simply, things will worsen even as we speak.

So far, here are what we know of the Wuhan Coronavirus’ deadliness:

#1. It is markedly deadlier than SARS or any coronavirus-related diseases before

#2: It can incubate for up to 25 days but even this can change given the propensity to mutate

#3: As mentioned above, it can mutate just like any common flu

#4: Fomites contaminated with the coronavirus pathogens can infect for 5 days under ideal conditions

#5: Contrary to what was claimed earlier, it is transmissible by air

#6: With ‘clusters’ appearing of late, it means people are getting infected without having visited China

Now, let’s consider how man has made the Wuhan Coronavirus deadlier than it should:

#7: Earlier delays in China, sometimes inexplicable, have worsened its lethal nature

#8: Ill-preparedness and what appears to be incoherency among the world’s medical experts (including the W.H.O.) gave the coronavirus even more time to become more unpredictable

#9: It is possible that some have overestimated their ability to contain the virus (see Italy and Iran)

#10: With some not closing their borders, the virus continue to have free passage to spread (see Hong Kong)

#11: Shortage of diagnostic kits heightens risk of the virus infecting without detection (see Indonesia)

#12: Severe lack of suitable facemasks, gloves and hand sanitisers adds to the problem of self-protection among those who face such shortages in hard-hit communities

#13: Deniers who blame the hype on Western conspiracies become frighteningly ill-equipped to defend themselves when the virus hits (much like not inoculating children when attending schools)

#14: Those who dismiss the seriousness and therefore ignore advice and instead, travel abroad

#15: Disturbing evidence of (some) infected Chinese visitors whose misinformation strikes at the heart of infection outbreaks in some countries (see S. Korea and Singapore)

#16: Malicious lack of cooperation with government authorities allows the outbreak to spread at an alarming rate (see Daegu)

No doubt about it, man must be held responsible for worsening the prospects of ever containing the Wuhan Coronavirus. It is bad enough that ignorance, indifference and/or negligence have played a fairly significant part in adding to the problem. However, there is also a strong element of political underhandedness and covert subterfuge that adds ugliness to the whole problem. We’ll look into these later. 

What we now have is a tragic case of misinformation, ignorance, indifference and misplaced loss of face that have played into the deadly hands of the Wuhan Coronavirus. If we look at the figures posed earlier, we can now ascertain what the fatality rate looks like:

Death rate calculations based on figures as at 12:00pm Feb 29 2020

Overall death rate (unconfirmed): 3.42%

China-only death rate (unconfirmed): 3.71%

Non-mainland-China confirmed death rate: 1.72%

On February 2, almost one month ago, the fatality rate was measured at 2.03%. As much as the Chinese authorities were looking to maintain (or lessen) this, it rose, 20 days later, to 2.7%. One week later, it escalated to 3.42%. Mind you, these are based on ‘official’ fatality numbers in China. In other words, chances are that the real figures are significantly higher.

Chinese authorities recently declared that they ‘expect’ to contain the virus by late April. Many experts in the West, on the other hand, have said that containment is too late. Nobody really knows who is right but judging from the recent spade of poor predictions made on the virus, it’s hard to take any more promises. The persistent underestimation of the Wuhan Coronavirus isn’t doing anyone any favours. Furthermore, scientists are struggling to find enough opportunity to know and learn more about the coronavirus. This means going public with any predictions will always be fraught with unpredictability or false optimism. 

Another real problem

Already, everything we know – or claim to know – about the Wuhan Coronavirus is worrying. When news surfaced that a certain ophthalmologist, Dr Li Wenliang, an avowed Christian, was castigated and publicly humiliated by Chinese authorities for what was a private chat message to friends concerning the outbreak, it was initially baffling because many of us didn’t know what that was all about. The coronavirus was still to be named let alone properly identified since information was very thin on the ground.

It didn’t take long for the truth to be told, that Dr Li had not acted unethically but instead was a real ‘whistleblower’ in the true sense of the word. What he told his friends on December 30 last year was indeed something that happened but Chinese authorities did all they could to clamp him down and shut him up. 39 days later, on February 7 2020, the 33-year-old Dr Li died of the virus he wanted the world to know. First accused of “making false comments on the Internet,” his death proved so deeply unpopular with the Chinese public that local authorities decided to play the blame game.

In all honesty, the real problem isn’t what little we know but what we do not know about the coronavirus because so much is still withheld from public knowledge. It has been said in some circles that the W.H.O. knew about the true nature of the original outbreak but chose not to expose them. Instead they elected to sing China’s praises for their ‘quick’ response. By then, it became common knowledge to many that China was not forthcoming with the real and important information concerning the coronavirus. By then, the horse had already bolted out of the stall.

An increasing number of people are convinced that the ‘official’ death count in China needs to be questioned. Many of those who are cynical about these official numbers cited statistical analytical evidence to point to the implausibility of these statistics that come out from China. In time, we were treated to a brace of statistics and inside information that somehow were ‘leaked’ out into social media. Much of these details were only available for a small window of time before they were removed to prevent authorities from tracking them down.

As to why China has not been transparent about the outbreak would probably make for an epic, if not exciting, book. Then again, as a communist state, not coming forward about many things in the past and present is not unusual. What we gather from such behaviour is that China is keener in covering its tracks because they have something to hide. But what are they trying to hide? What tracks are they so keen to cover? Indeed, what is the real picture of the Wuhan Coronavirus?

We now have our hands on some of the things that have leaked out from China via social media. They are often not reported at all by the liberal mainstream media. What we were privy to was an unexpurgated view of the very things that have been taking place in China that ultimately shocked us into numbness. These were video images that paint a completely different picture of the coronavirus. They tell us that the Chinese authorities have been struggling to cope in containing the coronavirus.

Here are some of the more surprising issues that we have learned from ‘unofficial’ channels of information:

#1: Hospital front-line staff have been so overwhelmed that many who came to them were treatment were sent home for self-quarantining but this presented a significant problem because many of these died at home and their deaths were misrepresented, thus impacting the real death toll arising from the Wuhan Coronavirus.

#2: Similarly, there were also many who were infected but refused to go to hospital for treatment and hence, their deaths were also similarly misrepresented, thus were excluded from the real death toll.

#3: The bodies of many who died from the coronavirus were actually very quickly cremated even without their families’ consent so much so that these cremations had gone undetected and possibly unrecorded, which means their numbers are unlikely to be part of the official count.

#4: Before Wuhan was placed in lockdown, as many as 5 million inhabitants left the metropolis and following the lockdown, not all of them returned home, which leads to the distinct possibility that outside infections were now possible.

#5: Between the time the lockdown in Wuhan was finally announced and the time it was imposed, a further number of the inhabitants forced their way out of the city and went elsewhere, again, leading to the possibility of spreading their infection to others in China and abroad.

#6: Of those from Wuhan who made their way out of the city, many found their way to other parts of the world (including Malaysia) before flight cancellations came into effect, meaning the likelihood of a wider outbreak is far higher again.

No doubt these six points are quite a handful to worry about already but it gets worse because many are not so sure anymore whether the original outbreak began from the Wuhan Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. At a size equivalent of 7 football pitches, there are more than 1,000 vendor stalls officially selling seafood but many of them will also sell you contraband wildlife animals, dead or alive. So, don’t let that word ‘seafood’ fool you because in this Market, you can even find koalas, let alone raccoons, marmots, deer, leopards, snakes, porcupines, scorpions, sea cockroaches, migratory birds, peacocks, bats, rabbits, foxes, ostriches and badgers and probably more. According to one of the stalls’ menu board, a live deer is worth 6,000RMB (Renminbi) albeit with its leg tendons destroyed just so it cannot run away from its cage!

It’s easy – and believable – for Chinese authorities to blame the outbreak on the Market. After all, SARS and MERS had originated from the civet and dromedary respectively. Experts also said that the Ebolavirus also came from animals, most notably, monkeys, chimpanzees and fruit bats. The fact that bats are notoriously known for carrying diseases made them an easy target. Sure enough then, the Chinese horseshoe bat was blamed for the Wuhan Coronavirus outbreak, which then led to the ‘immediate’ closure of the entire Market.

When scepticism grew concerning the bat being the source, some began to wag their finger at the snake and when that didn’t appear too believable, the poor pangolin came in for mention with the international news media giving undue coverage over this unusual looking anteater. None of this can take away the fact that the Market was appallingly dirty. Raw meat were seen selling in open spaces exposed to nearby dirty stray dogs. Fish vendors were descaling and cleaning fish squatting next to mountains of fish stacked over the filthy looking gutters. Exotic wild animals were housed in unlined cages stacked atop one another with droppings everywhere. In one case, there were snakes slithering everywhere on top of a counter space.

Today, the Market remains closed as local health authorities have taken the precaution of thoroughly cleaning it as well as fumigating the interiors before the vendors can return and presumably, resume business. One thing for sure, China is now contemplating seriously to ban the sale and consumption of exotic wildlife animals. However many aren’t sure if all this is nothing more than a smokescreen to distract people from looking 20 miles across the river where there is a covert government agency that conducts ‘biological research’ into all kinds of deadly diseases including the Wuhan Coronavirus.

The problem with the Wuhan Institute of Virology – one of China’s four Biosafety Level-4 (BSL-4) virology laboratories – is that it doesn’t just conduct research but in the most sinister fashion, a considerable amount of activities centre on the development of military-grade biological war weaponry of the type that is banned throughout the world. The idea was to develop Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) that gives China a huge leg up against the rest of the world.

Early this year, in January 2020, Radio Free Asia rebroadcast a 2015 Wuhan television report segment that showcased the Institute, branding it as China’s most advanced in virology research. Being Level-4 compliant meant that it was China’s only declared site capable of working and stockpiling lethal diseases and pathogens. Former senior analyst in the Israel Defence Force (IDF) military intelligence and the Ministry of Defence as well as microbiologist and specialist in chemical and biological warfare, Lt. Col. (res) Dany Shoham believes that the Wuhan Institute of Virology is connected to the country’s covert programme in biological weaponry.

It is easy to get carried away with rumours and fake news on the Internet. Every one of us, at some point in our lives, has read and been taken for a ride with such information. There’s also plenty of conspiracy stories of which perhaps, the most notorious is that the U.S. never landed man on the moon or the countless theories about how and why President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. With the rush of fake news since the start of Obama’s presidency, it is difficult sometimes to tell true from false. And so, it is important to look for corroboration and not spread unsubstantiated news irresponsibly.

To that end, news surrounding the Wuhan Institute of Virology are always going to be new to those who stick close to the left-leaning liberal mainstream news media that essentially hog much of the industry. But consider that at 20 miles apart, a virus outbreak in one will spread quickly enough to the other without breaking sweat. To not comment on something like this arouses suspicions unnecessarily. The point is people need to have the air cleared about such allegation and therefore, silence by the Chinese authorities add to the concern over the coronavirus.

When it comes to developing biological weapons, it is common knowledge that China is a cosignatory to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC)*, joining and ratifying the treaty on November 15 1984. This means they are not supposed to be dabbling in anything lethal like anthrax, botulism including coronaviruses like the Wuhan strain.

* NOTE: The full name is ‘Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction’

It is debatable whether anyone outside of China was aware of what went on in the Institute but then something happened in Canada that was finally reported in July 2019, well before the Wuhan Coronavirus became publicly known. Back then, a group of Chinese researchers attached to the National Microbiological Laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba were caught stealing dangerously infectious diseases. The last we know a married couple – Dr Keding Cheng and his wife Dr Xiangguo Qiu – including an unknown number of fellow cadres of the Chinese Communist Party were removed from Canada’s only BSL-4 virology lab.

Experts feared, at that time, that this could be a matter of national security because there was a strong case of intellectual property theft, which China remains infamous for. According to the director of the University of Alberta’s China Institute, Gordon Houlden, “The NML would have some pretty sensitive biological research material that… could be shared with or without authorisation with foreign countries.” Yet, “all of this is unproven but even microbiology, sometimes especially microbiology, can have issues that involve national security.”

Almost six months after that, on December 9 2019, U.S. customs officials at the Boston Logan International Airport apprehended a Chinese national who was on a Harvard-sponsored study visa, Zheng Zaosong, of trying to smuggle 21 vials of specimens out of the U.S. wrapped in a plastic bag and then concealed in a sock packed in his suitcase. The 30-year-old allegedly stole them from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre where he worked. The idea was that he planned to steal the vials and have them transferred to the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hospital where he would then write and publish a paper in his name on the proviso that the research would be successful.

Although this episode seems to have nothing to do with the coronavirus, the importance here was that the student had purported stolen research for the Chinese government. The U.S. District Court even considered him to be a flight risk because the communist authorities that offered him scholarship had actually funded his travel home using Hainan Airlines. Yet, when digging deeper, new disturbing discoveries opened the way to some connection with the Wuhan Coronavirus.

Firstly, the 30-year-old Zheng was actually involved in China’s ‘Thousand Talents Plan and was affiliated with the Wuhan University of Technology, considered a prestigious Chinese tertiary institution to do with science and technology. The ‘Thousand Talents Plan’ is a well-known program run by the Chinese government that rewards Chinese nationals for stealing proprietary information and violating export controls. Think of Huawei and you might not be too far off the mark.

For details of the actual charges levelled at Zheng by the U.S. Department of Justice, go here to download.

Other than Shoham, the creator of the 1989 U.S. Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act (BWATA), Prof. Francis Anthony Boyle, is also convinced that the Wuhan Coronavirus is a direct result of China’s biological warfare program. Inevitably, he linked its development to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. He even believes that the World Health Organisation is aware of this but have chosen to overlook it on the basis that the Institute itself is also “a specially designated W.H.O. research lab). Dr Boyle isn’t your typical airhead activist or conspiracy theorist.

In an exclusive interview conducted by Geopolitics & Empire, the well-respected 70-year-old professor of international law believes that the Wuhan Coronavirus simply escaped from the Institute. He is also certain that apart from its lethality, it has been developed as “an offensive biological warfare weapon or dual-use biowarfare weapons agent (that is) genetically modified with gain of function properties, which is why the Chinese government originally tried to cover it up.”

Experts also said that the United States had joined Canada in mounting investigations into the Chinese researchers amidst serious concerns over breaches of national security to do with highly sensitive intellectual property theft. But then all of this should not come as a surprise at a time when China has continually escalated their aggression in several parts of the world.

All of this leads us to the covert operations at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and its close proximity to the Market. The short distance itself would not be an issue under normal circumstances but in the outbreak of the coronavirus, that distance could easily become a hot talking point especially in view of the lab itself. One question then needs answering – what are they hiding that they have refused to comment on? Once containment became impossible, transparency was necessary for the outbreak to be reined in.

This transparency became a huge wedge between the Chinese government and the rest of the world because the seriousness of the outbreak drew the attention of not just the W.H.O. but also America’s C.D.C. (Centres for Disease Control and Prevention), both of which volunteered to step in and help bring the coronavirus under control in Wuhan. China declined. Given the covert nature of what takes place within the Institute, perhaps that is not something unexpected. However, hiding facts is one thing; saving lives as early and quickly as possible is quite another.

Not long after the interview, Arkansas U.S. Senator Tom Cotton rejected the mainstream media’s assertion that the Market (and its dead and live wild animals) was to blame, citing a Lancet study that clearly demonstrated evidence pointing to the first cases – including Patient Zero – having no connection whatsoever with the Market.

“As one epidemiologist said, ‘That virus went into the seafood market before it came out of the seafood market.’ We still don’t know where it originated… I would note that Wuhan also has China’s only biosafety level-four super laboratory that works with the world’s most deadly pathogens to include, yes, coronavirus,” Cotton said. In his Tweet on January 30 2020, he added:

“China claimed – for almost two months – that coronavirus had originated in a Wuhan Seafood Market. That is not the case. @THELANCET published a study demonstrating that of the original 40 cases, 14 of them had no contact with the Seafood Market, including Patient Zero. pic.twitter.com/pdgqghjkgy

With so much damning scepticism levelled at China’s claims, it’s also easy to blame them all on conspirators working overtime. It’s a no-brainer that, aided by pro-China online activists, all of these are nothing more than vacuous allegations designed to oppose China by pro-Trump supporters. But here’s the problem with this accusation: The earliest round of news of the coronavirus actually began way back in July 2019. At that time, what we now call the Wuhan Coronavirus had not even made any news headlines. Secondly, that newsbreak was not American but Canadian in origin. It was the Canadian authorities that revealed investigation into the theft of dangerous viruses that invariably allowed others to join the dots to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Thirdly, China had all the opportunities to comment but they did not.

What you make out of all this will always be your decision. But to discount all of these is unwise. You can if all these pieces of news had come from ultra-right-wing news sites but they didn’t. The CBC (Canadian Broadcast Corporation) cannot be labelled as ‘ultra-right wing.’ The same can also be said of News.com.au, which is an Australian news website owned by News Corp Australia. The Harvard Crimson is one of many official news sites belonging to Harvard University, which is as liberal as they come. The U.K.’s Express is left leaning.

To blame a defenceless bat or snake and then, the pangolin is easy. Dead animals don’t tell tales. Even when alive, they don’t have a voice. Animals are easy game because SARS and MERS including the Ebolavirus were all animal derived. The civet was apparently responsible for SARS. MERS originated from a dromedary and in the case of the Ebolavirus, the factsheet says it was monkeys.

But that doesn’t always mean that animals are necessarily to be blamed. Like civets, bats are well known as disease carriers. In other words, it’s not such a great idea to eat them no matter how tempting. Someone on the Internet suggested a theory that maybe a bat infected at the Institute could’ve escaped to the Market where it was then caught and sold in the Market before it was consumed by one or more humans. In that sense, the bat is not a true originator of the coronavirus.

But even that suggestion doesn’t fly because the Lancet has reported that 14 among the first 40 cases of the infection were nowhere near the Market. 

The extent of the spread

Here are some worldwide figures for you to digest:

Region: Worldwide

Confirmed cases: 94,250

Countries affected: 159

Fatalities: 3,221

Fatality rate: 3.42%

Region: China (mainland only)

Confirmed cases: 80,270

Fatalities: 2,981

Fatality rate: 3.71%

Region: Outside mainland China

Confirmed cases: 13,941

Countries affected: 79

Fatalities: 240

Fatality rate: 1.72%

List: Asia, Europe, Australasia/Oceania, Middle-East, North America, Central & South Americas, African subcontinent

Region: Asia (excluding mainland China)

Confirmed cases: 7,063

Countries affected: 18 (excluding Diamond Princess)

Fatalities: 52

Fatality rate: 0.74%

List: South Korea (35), Diamond Princess* (6), Japan (6), Hong Kong (2), Thailand (1), Taiwan (1), Philippines (1), Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Macau, India, Nepal, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Indonesia  

* Although an ocean liner, Diamond Princess is included because of its high number of infections onboard

Region: Europe

Confirmed cases: 3,505

Countries affected: 35

Fatalities: 85

Fatality rate: 2.42%

List: Italy (79), France (4), San Marino (1), Spain (1), Germany, U.K., Russia, Finland, Sweden, Belgium, Austria, Croatia, Switzerland, Greece, North Macedonia, Georgia, Norway, Romania, Denmark, Estonia, Netherlands, Lithuania, Belarus, Iceland, Monaco, Czech Republic, Portugal, Rep. Ireland, Luxembourg, Ukraine, Latvia, Andorra, Armenia, Liechtenstein, Poland

Region: Australasia/Oceania

Confirmed cases: 44

Countries affected: 2

Fatalities: 1

Fatality rate: 2.27%

List: Australia (1), New Zealand

Region: Middle-East

Confirmed cases: 3,138

Countries affected: 11

Fatalities: 93

Fatality rate: 2.96%

List: Iran (92), Iraq (1), Israel, Lebanon, U.A.E., Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Egypt, Afghanistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan

Region: North America

Confirmed cases: 161

Countries affected: 2

Fatalities: 9

Fatality rate: 5.59%

List: United States (9), Canada

Region: South and Central Americas

Confirmed cases: 12

Countries affected: 6

Fatalities: 0

Fatality rate: 0%

List: Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Chile, Argentina

Region: African subcontinent

Confirmed cases: 13

Countries affected: 5

Fatalities: 0

Fatality rate: 0

List: Algeria, Nigeria, Senegal, Morocco, Tunisia

Top 3 countries with the highest number of confirmed cases (other than China): South Korea (5,621), Iran (2,922), Italy (2,502)

Top 3 countries with the highest number of fatalities (other than China): Iran (92), Italy (79), South Korea (35)

Top 3 regions of the world with the highest fatality rate: North America (5.59%, 9 of 161), Middle East (2.96%, 93 of 3,138), Europe (2.42%, 85 of 3,505)

Top 3 regions of the world with the largest number of countries infected: Europe (35), Asia (18), Middle-East (11)

These are staggering numbers, made even more alarming when you see how they stacked up back in January or even at the beginning of February. In recent days, the biggest changes outside of China are Iran and Italy where big numbers are racking up at a rate that has taken everyone by surprise. In the 24 hours leading to March 4, 516 confirmed infections sprung out of South Korea, increasing the outbreak to a total of 5,328 cases. At the same time, 4 died, pushing the number of fatalities to 32. Outside of China, this is the worst epidemic since December 2019.

From about 25 countries in January, we now have almost 80 in the first week of March, an increase of more than three fold. Two months ago, the coronavirus had not caught on in South and Central Americas including the entire African sub-continent. In the Middle-East, only the United Arab Emirates had but one confirmed case. There were none in Australasia and North America. Essentially the coronavirus was focused very geographically in the main parts of Asia. Today, it’s clearly everywhere.

Look at Iran and Italy. Having added another 227 to a total of 2,263 cases, Italy has the largest cluster after South Korea. Number of fatalities climbed from 27 to 79 in a matter of days. The Italian government must have been shell-shocked enough to close not just schools and universities in the hard-hit northern districts including Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia-Romagna but now throughout the country. Its Serie-A soccer league has not been spared as well with matches now all played behind closed doors, meaning that fans are not allowed to watch.

Iran’s numbers are no better with the clerical government not really sure what they need to do. With its Senior Advisor to the country’s Supreme Leader dead from the coronavirus and vice-president for women and family affairs including the Deputy Health Minister infected, Iran is reeling despite assurances to the contrary hardly days ago. In recent days, worshippers to their ancient shrines were seen literally licking the gates as a show of defiance against the coronavirus. And if that’s not stupefying enough, the Iranian government decided to release tens of thousands of prisoners in a bid to slow the outbreak in the crowded penitentiaries but they might not have thought enough about public safety though.

That’s just a small glimpse into the recent events but let us not forget the 5 million odd inhabitants who left Wuhan before the lockdown was announced. Authorities have thus far failed to release these figures. It took social media to leak them about 1 to 2 weeks later for everyone else to know. The list of numbers that was leaked revealed a total of 21 destinations across 5 continents:

Rest of Asia: Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan ROC, Thailand, Vietnam

Europe: France, Italy, Russia, Turkey, United Kingdom

Australasia: Australia

Middle East: United Arab Emirates

North America: United States of America

Looking at this list with what we know today, there are some countries missing, particularly those in the Middle East such as Iran. But that’s not fully the point. What is more important is that these numbers corroborate with how the epidemic has been fanning out. If we correlate the countries which the Wuhan inhabitants had spread to with the outbreak numbers that we know of, we can then see how they make sense.

 For now, let us look at the numbers that have been leaked out and see where they went:

Note: ‘Entry pts’ refer to the number of different airport destinations used to enter the country

Country	Arrivals	Entry pts	Country	Arrivals	Entry pts
Thailand	25,152	6	Cambodia	3,078	1
Japan	14,478	3	Turkey	2,650	1
Singapore	9,934	1	United Kingdom	2,650	1
Taiwan	6,166	2	Indonesia	2,520	1
S. Korea	6,135	1	Italy	2,385	1
Hong Kong	5,866	1	Russia	2,313	1
Macau	5,647	1	Australia	2,169	1
Malaysia	5,418	1	France	1,971	1
U.S.	5,409	2	Myanmar	1,682	2
Vietnam	4,732	2	Philippines	600	1
U.A.E.	3,180	1

If you’ve been counting, you will realise that the above doesn’t add up anywhere near 5 million. At a little over 114,000, that’s not even 5% of the total that went missing before the lockdown. Someone suggested, quite plausibly, that the others went to other parts within China. At any rate, these numbers reveal that the popular destinations are mainly in Asia with most of the rest going to Europe with the exceptions being Australia, the United States and the U.A.E. 

Now that you can see where some of these Wuhan inhabitants went, let us match those numbers up with the current outbreak numbers:

	Wuhan arrivals (recorded prior to lockdown; Jan 2020)	Current outbreak numbers (Mar 5 2020)
		Cases	Deaths	Others
Thailand	25,152	43	1	1 serious
Japan (excl. D. Princess)	14,478	319*	6	29 serious
Singapore	9,934	110	0	7 critical
Taiwan ROC	6,166	42	1
South Korea	6,135	5,621	35	25 critical, 27 serious
Hong Kong	5,866	101	2	4 critical, 2 serious
Macau	5,647	10	0
Malaysia	5,418	50	0
U.S.A.	5,409	128	9	6 critical, 2 serious
Vietnam	4,732	16	0
U.A.E.	3,180	27	0	2 serious
Cambodia	3,078	1	0
Turkey	2,650	[so far nothing]
U.K.	2,650	53	0
Indonesia	2,520	2	0
Italy	2,385	2,502	79	140 serious
Russia	2,313	3	0
Australia	2,169	42	1
France	1,971	212	4	8 serious
Myanmar	1,682	[so far nothing]
Philippines	600	3	1

Of course, not all the outbreak numbers (column #3) are directly linked to the departed inhabitants from Wuhan. As we’re now beginning to see, infections don’t even need to involve people who have been to Wuhan. You can be infected by touching a contaminated surface or through air transmission, which means that the confirmed cases for each country can come from any number of possibilities. Such is the case with the Shincheonji Church of Jesus cult group in Daegu, South Korea. The spike numbers there were largely attributed to the huge clusters comprising members who had recently visited Wuhan.

Indonesia is another issue of concern. So far, they have not racked up numbers but time will tell. Not long after the Indonesian government had said they had no confirmed cases, out sprang two. There is growing evidence that someone from Wuhan had visited the island of Bali and currently, investigators are attempting to track the person down.

But Indonesia has another problem and a more serious one at that – apparently they have run out of diagnostic kits and the government has shown little to no interests in buying more. With a population of close to 270 million, Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim nation of which many live below the poverty line spread across an archipelago. If there is an outbreak and the medical staff lack diagnostic kits and they do not have adequate quarantining facilities, it would be completely calamitous.

From the list given, it is understood that some 5,418 inhabitants from Wuhan arrived in East Malaysia in the city of Kota Kinabalu. Interestingly, none entered the country via the usual Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) in the peninsular. That alone begs an obvious question – why? Why would over 5,000 Wuhan visitors suddenly flock to Kota Kinabalu? If it’s genuinely about tourism, Malaysia offers plenty of such attractions everywhere else too. Some bird flew to my ear to tell me that the answer might have something to do with ‘flying in under the radar.’

We should also ask where the 5,000 went after arriving in Kota Kinabalu. Apart from the known 108 who shortly thereafter left for home, there is no idea where the rest went let alone how many of them were carrying the coronavirus.

The counterpunches so far

The counterpunch to contain the Wuhan Coronavirus has so far been lacklustre at best. At worst, it’s a complete pandemonium. As we have been able to witness, not everyone in the medical community is reading from the same page and that includes the W.H.O. Even the simple matter of whether or not wearing a facemask helps, the opinions have been too diverse to mean anything. All of this send the wrong messages to the people who not only tire at the disunity but are confused and frustrated.

The issue of the facemask has been diabolical. We saw on news media how different medical experts – let alone health ministry personnel – tell us all sorts of things. Some insist that they are pointless. I witnessed an interview with a medical expert representing a civil aviation body who advised against wearing facemasks while in flight. And, of course, I’ve also come across those who say they do work. In a TIME magazine interview (available on YouTube), Prof. Yuen Kwok-yung, the acclaimed microbiologist who discovered and resolved the SARS virus in 2003 not only insisted that the world must treat the Wuhan Coronavirus seriously but was adamant that the facemask is an important piece of defence against it.

Freshly after the initial outbreak of the coronavirus, local pharmacists were persistently recommending the 3-ply surgical facemask over the costlier and less-comfortable-to-wear N95 NIOSH respirator. It took the W.H.O. almost forever to finally admit that the coronavirus is air-transmissible, forcing a deference to the N95 instead. By then, there was already a serious shortage in supply throughout the country. Still many sceptics remain disinterested in acquiring facemasks. Instead they have gone on the offensive to accuse others of making a meal out of it.

In spite of all the confusion over what precautionary measures to take – facemasks, gloves, goggles, hand sanitisers etc. – one thing everyone agrees on is the adoption of good hygiene management. This means rigorously scrubbing our hands. 20 seconds is a good benchmark to ensure that every part of our hands is covered. A good seven-step handwashing procedure should include the following:

Step 1: Rub the palms together

Step 2: Rub the back of both hands

Step 3: Interlace fingers and rub hands together

Step 4: Interlock fingers and rub back of fingers of both hands

Step 5: Rub thumbs in rotating manner followed by area between index finger and thumb for both hands

Step 6: Rub fingers on palm for both hands

Step 7: Rub both wrists in a rotating manner

NOTE: Steps courtesy of Values Formation and Social Transformation Council, Philippines Int’l Inc., 2008, in conjunction with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) Awareness Campaign

That’s not all. A more comprehensive hygiene management list in addition to wearing an approved facemask must include the following:

1. Avoid touching any part of your face (with your hands)

2. Cough (or sneeze) into a handkerchief or your elbow but not directly at someone

3. Stay at least 2 metres (or more) away from the person you’re talking to

4. Avoid open or closed crowded enclosures where possible

5. Avoid directly touching common public surfaces (eg. door handles and knobs, elevator buttons, staircase railings etc.)

6. Be on alert of anyone from China (and not just Wuhan) you are to meet up with

7. Be alert of anyone who has just returned from countries with outbreak issues

8. Don’t consume foods prepared by unhygienic vendors

9. Do not be exposed to farm or wild animals for the time being

10. Try not to eat raw or near-raw animal-based foods such as oysters, steaks, fish, eggs etc.

In China, the counter-response to the coronavirus has been nothing short of breathtaking but in truth, it’s not as if there is anything less that the authorities could resort to. Beginning with Wuhan and its purported 11 million population, the government has resorted to tough measures like lockdown, which, in effect, is large-scale quarantining of the entire metropolis. After Wuhan came a string of six other major cities within the blighted province of Hubei. All told, a total of near 60 million people were affected by the multiple lockdowns.

Under lockdown, people cannot enter or exit the city without special permits. Earlier, authorities had given one day per week for people to leave their homes and go outdoors but even that has now been taken away in view of the risks involved. Now that we are in the month of March, more cities, covering even more people, may face lockdowns but we just won’t know.

Even for cities not under lockdown, compromising measures have also come into force. These measures curtail personal liberties that the people have no other choice but to comply. Numerous public amenities and places of interests such as the famous Great Wall, Summer Palace and Tiananmen Square are, for now, out of bounds. It’s surreal that many of the streets and highways around the cities of China are completely void of traffic. No cars parked on the side of streets. People are missing from them as well. These might as well be ghost towns.

Chinese authorities have now banned the sale and consumption of wild animals, which might or might not work simply because these are considered very popular delicacies at the dinner table for many locals. Banning them may simply make them even more sought-after and at exorbitant prices. None of this has stopped some NGOs from petitioning for them to be permanently banned.

Perhaps the most publicised part of China’s rescue plan was the construction of the first two prefab hospitals in Wuhan that were completed at ‘lightning’ speed. Once they were completed, there were an additional 2,300 much-needed beds to house the infected. However it didn’t take long for authorities to see all these vacant beds taken up to full capacity. Invariably, the pressure was on to build more prefab hospitals but China could face yet another problem of a depleted workforce numbed by the outbreak and paralysed by more deaths than before.

But even mighty China with the world’s second largest consumer market also faced chronic shortages that are now life-threatening. With supply of facemasks depleted, China was forced to look elsewhere but that wasn’t easy as similar shortfalls were now experienced by an increasing number of other countries. And before the dust had even settled, many other items had similarly flown off the shelves and in quick time, supermarkets around the world were plundered until even things like toilet rolls were wiped out.

In desperation, China sought far and wide and found 10 years’ worth of stockpiled facemasks that Italy were willing to sell but as Rome painfully realised, they too need them badly now that the outbreak had scorched their own people. With more than 2,500 confirmed cases and 80 dead (as at March 5), Italy must be rueing that massive sale. Even as China thinks that the worst might probably be over, the pandemic had just begun for the rest of the world. Italy will likely be joined by numerous other countries in the worst possible way.

In what was supposed to be a concerted counterpunch against the coronavirus, it was the W.H.O. that dropped the ball quite spectacularly. After a series of hesitations that appeared more farcical by the day, the much-awaited shift from ‘serious global emergency’ to a declaration of a ‘pandemic’ was finally called. But all this while, many knew to call it that but under Chinese veto, W.H.O.’s hands were likely tied. By the time that ‘dreadful’ word was used to describe the globally threatening Wuhan Coronavirus, many experts felt that it was now too late to contain its spread.

Despite the W.H.O.’s monumental flubs, there were countries that decided to push ahead in the interests of their own national security. So while the world stood by and waited for the word ‘pandemic’ to be mentioned, more and more countries closed their borders, stopped flights in and out of China, forbade Chinese students from returning to their campuses to continue their studies, organised mercy flights to evacuate their own people from Wuhan, banned Chinese nationals from touring, banned ocean liners from mooring, shuttered schools, colleges and universities, cancelled planned major entertainment and sporting events and escalated the manufacturing of additional facemasks.

Saudi Arabia took the extraordinary measure in shutting out all pilgrimages to Islam’s holiest sites. As for the 2020 Summer Olympics, the I.O.C. in conjunction with the Japanese government are now seriously mulling the idea of postponement to sometime later in the year (if at all). Meanwhile, China had abandoned all hope of staging the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Shanghai slated mid-April 2020.

So what then is missing from China’s counterpunch? Or have they finally turned the corner in countering the Wuhan Coronavirus? The Chinese authorities might think so but some of us are doubtful. Have the pandemic peaked as they believe? At best, it’s a little early to say. Sure signs are not quite there yet. Have the numbers begun to recede? We wouldn’t really know until we get our hands on the real numbers!

Three months after the coronavirus was officially unveiled, one thing remains beyond the pale and that is, China had clearly dropped the ball in the way they mismanaged the outbreak. But it’s also apparent that even now, the Chinese are still trying to defend their inactions and intransigence. As much as they would like, developments behind the scenes have begun to unfold. The Lancet’s report was damning despite efforts to ignore it. The Canadian incident with the theft of vials of biomaterial cannot be ignored. And other than Dr Li Wenliang who has since died from the coronavirus, there are other whistleblowers who have since ‘disappeared.’ Most irritatingly, China doesn’t want to talk about them.

China’s subterfuge behind the W.H.O.’s conduct concerning the outbreak remains unacceptable in the eyes of many because the resulting holdups allowed the outbreak to go from strength to strength. Instead of working hand in hand with international medical experts, China has resorted to finger-pointing, blaming as many people as they can find. Airlines are pummelled for cancelled flights in and out of the mainland. Countries are criticised for closing their borders to Chinese visitors as well as ‘hyping up’ the outbreak.

In response to their critics, China has organised counter-information on the blogging level to respond to social media and also on official news media channels. Having very deep pockets and a communist-style resolve helps and China will spare nothing to push back and defend their opaqueness. And, of course, the biggest elephant in the room remains the Wuhan Institute of Virology. To no end, China will not talk about this no matter how much mounting evidence builds in the next many weeks to months. 

The economic impact

17 years ago when SARS struck, it was like the end of the world for many but it didn’t do much to dent the economy. On a larger scale, the global economy remains relatively unscathed. Not so with the Wuhan Coronavirus, which has amplified the vulnerability of all China-linked economic issues across the world.

In China, virtually every pillar of society has been affected. The economy has been so impacted that no industry is left standing unscratched. From small businesses to enterprises to multinationals, the Chinese economy has been pummelled by halted production, worker shortages, uncertainties and orders to stand down. Businesses dealing with fast-food eateries and diners plus coffee joints such as McDonald’s, KFC, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, Luckin Coffee and Burger King and many others have seen half their number of outlets shuttered across China.

Many businesses like Microsoft, Google, Facebook and countless others including banks and financial institutions have ordered their staff to work from home, curtailed all unnecessary travelling especially if it involves going in and out of China. Basically the instruction was to not go out particularly if it involves work.

The same can be said of the information technology, travel and tourism, transport, entertainment, sporting, apparel, banking and finance, automotive and aviation industries just to name a few. With 91 airlines (counted as at Jan 25) cutting out at least some (if not all) flights in and out of China, impact on the bottom line can only be devastating. In many airports around the world, it’s now a common sight to see parking lot after lot of stationary passenger planes left unflown while flight crews all take a hit on their salaries with non-paid leaves.

Just as hard hit is the automotive industry that is closed to standstill until now. Although there is talk of some degree of production resuming, there’s still a long way from full resumption. Most of the car companies are struggling to reopen their production lines because their supply chains are similarly hit with parts shortages that make it implausible to properly manufacture their vehicles.

When it comes to the automotive industry, that means shortages will affect worldwide supplies. Orders from around the world are now not likely to be easily fulfilled as car companies scramble to find alternative options to parts that aren’t getting out from China. This problem affects innumerable companies including Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Citroën and others.

Unlike SARS, the Wuhan Coronavirus’ reach is far deadlier and we’re not just talking about fatality numbers. The economic impact in China has since spread like the Domino’s Effect on the rest of the world. Stock markets and oil prices have reacted in the worst possible way. But what might leave a scar on the world is the lesson learned from being overly dependent on China’s manufacturing base. With virtually everything made by the Chinese, the onslaught of the coronavirus have almost brought life to a standstill as so many products are now inaccessible with supply lines all but down.

From smartphones to laptops, from sports runners to jeans, tees, casual pants and all, from electric keyboards to amplifiers and speakers, from hardware tools to bathroom floor tiles, virtually everything that the home needs is made in China. And alarmingly, that also includes some of the most crucial medicinal drugs needed. Over the years, Western reliance on Chinese manufacturing has made plenty of nouveau rich billionaires, funded the growth of megapoles across the whole Chinese landscape and catapulted Chinese smartphones to the top of the heap. With the wakeup call prompted by a very ravaging coronavirus, the world might slowly realise that diversification could be necessary to prevent something like this from happening again. In other words, big brands might look to contemplate moving out to other countries.

And thus, the fallout from the Wuhan Coronavirus may have just begun. Yet one huge problem remains since no one knows how long this pandemic would last. And the question is whether or not these businesses have what it takes to ride through the next many months.

 Is the vaccine coming?

We’re constantly told by the media that a vaccine is coming but no one has a firm date. To date, the number of countries racing to come up with a vaccine includes the United States, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Australia and Israel.

The latest news coming from the Jewish State is that the Israelis are merely ‘weeks’ away from producing the vaccine. This is despite the W.H.O. saying that the earliest possible is some 18 months away. The case with Israel is unusual because scientists at MIGAL, a Galilee-based research institute, happened to be coincidentally working on a poultry-based coronavirus model in the study of a different infectious disease. By chance, that model is genetically identical to the Wuhan strain.

“All we need to do is adjust the system to the new sequence. We are in the middle of this process and hopefully in a few weeks, we will have the vaccine in our hands… to prevent coronavirus,” said Dr Chen Katz, MIGAL’s biotechnology leader.

At the same time, another Israeli company, BATM, has successfully produced a rapid-response C.D.C.-compliant diagnostic kit for testing against the Wuhan Coronavirus. At this point in time, production is quickly underway in order that they can be shipped without delay to the battlefront in China and other countries that are in dire need for them.

Outside of Israel, efforts have been doubled to compete with Israel in the rush to get a vaccine out as quickly as possible. Thankfully, funding doesn’t seem to be an obstacle unlike the case with SARS. After SARS waned, funding dried up and all research towards a producing a vaccine grounded to a halt. Till today, there is no vaccine available should SARS reoccur. Let’s hope it doesn’t because we’re simply not prepared no matter the opportunities available to produce one in the past.

But here’s the interesting thing. China is not short of technology, at least not from the common public vantage view. At the forefront, the communist state has a powerful naval presence with a growing force of aircraft carriers in the South China Sea and is looking to build on it. Not long ago, they became the first Asian nation to send astronauts into space. They also ‘design’ and produce their own jetfighters that look uncannily like those from the Americans. Soon, they are slated to produce their first home-grown commercial airliner as well.

In the meantime, it’s common knowledge that China wants to dominate broadband networking wireless technology. With the world on the brink of going all in with 5G, news media tells us that state-sponsored Huawei is leading the competition. And there’re billions and billions of lucrative business dollars involved here. 

Look at China’s remarkable metropoles with their stunning highways, skyscrapers, bridges, tunnels and truly monumental structures. Don’t forget the country’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a bold outreach to help third-world countries develop their infrastructure through soft loans and building expertise. This strategy covers 70 countries in Asia, Europe and Africa and involves trillions of dollars.

But despite such an admirable rollcall of achievements and expertise, China still cannot seem to put their best experts to produce a vaccine fit to overcome the Wuhan Coronavirus. They appear adept at developing biological weapons but they can’t cure it. And it’s not for want of funding – China’s deep pockets are significantly deeper than most other countries in the world. With their communist resolve, they can also do virtually anything they want. That’s one conundrum that is hard for many to understand.

So with China out of the picture, the world is resting on the five nations – and any others – to help thwart the coronavirus. While many agree that it is too late to save the first wave, hopefully it will come in time to stop the coronavirus from mutating any further. But let’s not underestimate the effort required to develop a vaccine. It might sound straightforward but it isn’t. To finally come up with a vaccine that works, scientists need time (and funds) to conduct lab tests before going to time-consuming human trials. Provided that all these are successful, the vaccine will need certification, compliance and type approval, which in the U.S. would be the F.D.A., C.D.C. and quite possibly also, the H.H.S. (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services). For the rest of the world, it is the W.H.O. that will control its distribution and use as well as legal contexts.

Right at this moment, there’s some talk in Thailand and possibly, Hong Kong that two particular antiretroviral drugs – Lopinavir and Ritonavir – designed to battle HIV/AIDS could be effective against the Wuhan Coronavirus. This means that tests need to be conducted that will take some time although nowhere like creating a vaccine from scratch. And if they prove successful, the same compliance, certification and approval will be needed from the same bodies before they could be legally used. But this means more time, time that might not be on our hands. The only way out of this is to attain ‘compassionate’ consent from the W.H.O. or F.D.A. to avoid legal complications.

 What people say about the coronavirus

Our collective Christian community has had much to say about the Wuhan Coronavirus although that doesn’t mean everyone is on the same page. But one thing is certain – not all these views are also well accepted in the secular community since they may also be apocalyptical or they speak of God’s retribution. Needless to say, seculars and atheists have no time to listen to such views and so they dismiss them outright.

Here’s what a woman said when asked if the coronavirus is a sign of the End Times:

“I suppose. The great thing about the Bible is that it is so ambiguous and so easily applied to virtually ANY philosophy or point of view that it takes very little distorting to make any modern day event a ‘prophecy.’ A person can literally point at the Teletubbies and insist that it is part of the ‘End-Time Bible prophecies’ and folks would be hard pressed to disprove it.”

One person whom I came across online sounds like a bitter and cynical ex-Christian. He has this to say:

“Prophesying something which has been part and parcel of man’s condition since time immemorial is not a prophecy – it’s a comment on prevailing conditions. The Bible interestingly mentions things which were of that time and fails to mention anything in the future, which was prevalent at the time of writing. Wars? Had them. Seen them. Bought the t-shirt. Pestilence? Always been around. Men being lovers of money? Wow! Didn’t see that one coming! I would have been more impressed if the prophecies had predicted plastic in the seas, the ozone layer, climate change and Sharon Osbourne. But no! Predicting the predictable is not very convincing.

Just like the cynics, there are those who dismiss the significance of the Wuhan Coronavirus. The clichéd standard line of argument is that the common flu kills more people in a year than the coronavirus ever will. Besides, sensationalised coronavirus news sells and the mundane flu doesn’t. In other words, the Wuhan Coronavirus is overrated because too many people give it too much attention.

This guy obviously has an axe to grind with the Christian eschatological view:

“The SARS virus is a coronavirus. Fortunately, an epidemic in 2003 was brought under control, although minor outbreaks have since been reported. The newest coronavirus, codenamed 2019 n-CoV, is the latest and perhaps the most potent of recently reported coronaviruses. Only a fevered religious mentality would see this as fulfilment of some kind of biblical end-time prophecy.”

Sceptics often believe they know more than anyone else. Their main line of argument is that it is all a conspiracy. In recent days, sceptics who are also anti-American (or pro-China, depending on where you stand) have been making a lot of noise about the coronavirus being American in origin. Here’s someone who echoes some fellow churchgoers view that some of us are guilty of hyping up the Wuhan Coronavirus. According to him, we’re nothing more than fearmongers:

“Why do people constantly hyperbolise the hope for the ‘end of days’? Is life just so horrible for them? Or, could it be, that they place themselves above all others and wish for everyone else to suffer while they are ‘miraculously taken up into the ‘sky’? No, the Bible makes no particular mention of coronaviruses. No, the coronavirus is not a big threat to humans, there are much worse everyday diseases, like the flu, that takes hundreds of thousands of lives every single year. No, the ‘end’ is not ‘beginning.’ Stop being afraid. Stop listening to fools who shout ‘the end is near.’ Stop causing fear in those around you (hey, guess what, that’s a sin).

From the way different people respond to the Wuhan Coronavirus, it is evident that not everyone is in agreement about its deadliness. Despite its increasing severity, some are still adamant that all of this are overdramatised by sensational news reporting. Even the fact that those who have recovered from it who then suffer a relapse and die doesn’t appear to mean anything to them. But they point to the rush-hour madness in last-minute frenzy shopping at many supermarkets across the world.

The manic stockpiling that even toilet rolls are all cleaned out. The emptied supermarket shelves among deserted aisles. All the talk about prophetic End Times. In Hong Kong, there are gangs that go robbing people not of gold and jewellery but of masks, toilet rolls and stuff like that. Even some Christians don’t quite agree with this panic buying. But there’s nothing to agree or disagree. The problem is with human nature and when people smell serious trouble just ahead, the idea is to stock up to safeguard their own families. Call it selfishness or survival, that’s not an unpredictable outcome when there is a pandemic.

Of course, the popularity of social media hasn’t helped one bit. The Twitter world has been moving as rapidly as Facebook in spreading news, real and otherwise. There is also plenty of confusion caused by a medical community that has not been in agreement with the seriousness of the pandemic. Just the simple matter of whether facemasks work or not appears to be too much to ask of the experts.

 Ezekiel’s prophecy

In a recent online article, an internationally-renown but controversial rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto spoke of a vision he had before China officially announced the coronavirus outbreak, which was around early January 2020. In that vision, the Moroccan Chief Rabbi said:

“On Shabbat, I had a vision that was not at all simple. There is about to be an enormous shock in the world on the scale of the assassination of a world leader or the 9-11 terrorist attacks.”

“It will be a very difficult scale and come in ways that are very difficult. All the Jews must gather and strengthen themselves to pray and repent. The world is going to undergo a shock that will go down in history as one of the worst. This will begin in only a few days. We have to begin right now to ‘sweeten the judgement,’” the rabbi added.

About a month later, when the coronavirus became a full-blown affair, the rabbi confirmed that his vision was about this outbreak (at that time, it was approaching but not quite a pandemic). He called it a ‘catastrophe on the same level as the Holocaust” as well as “the hardest period the world has experienced in several countries.” Quite alarmingly, he also said that, “China is on the verge of total collapse.”

Then he added this scriptural verse:

“I will pour out My anger upon Sin, the stronghold of Egypt, and I will destroy the wealth of No. I will set fire to Egypt; Sin shall writhe in anguish and No shall be torn apart; and Noph [shall face] adversaries in broad daylight.” (Ezek 30:15-16, m.e.)

Being a rabbi (and a Jew), he would have quoted the above from some Hebrew Bible. English translations of the Bible uses different names although some follow the above. Nonetheless, they offer us useful clues as to what these places are and possibly, what they mean. Of the three names mentioned, the one that stirs the greatest curiosity is Sin.

In translations that do not use the name Sin, the substitutes are either Pelusium or Sais. Instead of No, the alternative names are Thebes, Memphis or Alexandria. Strangely, the names Memphis and Thebes are used by some translations as replacements for Noph as well. In certain translations, Diospolis is used instead. No doubt all this gets confusing. A cursory study of these names didn’t make things any clearer but in essence, here are what we know from the Concordance and other biblical resources:

The name Pelusium is originally used in the Latin Vulgate and is derived from the Greek word ‘pelos,’ which means clay. It refers to a frontier city on the easternmost branch of the Nile, which places it around 2½ miles from the sea. Its modern name is Pheromi. In Hebrew, it is called Sin, which means ‘mire.’ It seems the Greek alternative is Sais (Ancient Greek: Σάϊς) as preferred in the Septuagint.

The city of No is also referred to as ‘Hamon No’ or ‘Amon No,’ both of which are Hebrew names. The Amon part of the name refers to the temple of Amon, who is the chief divinity of Thebes. No is an Egyptian city that is probably better known by the names Thebes or Diospolis Magna. While it is difficult to place a meaning to the name No, its derivation is Shemitic. The name Diospolis Magna lends its origin to the city of Jupiter. It is the name used in the Septuagint while the Latin Vulgate preferred the name Alexandria.

Thebes, on the other hand, has a more formal name that is, Thebe Egyptiacae. Thebes itself is derivatively ancient Greek (Gk. Θῆβαι, Thēbai). Memphis is the name preferred by the Septuagint. It is the Greek and Roman form of the name that comes from the Coptic ‘Menfi,’ which appears to be abbreviated from an Egyptian name, ‘Men-nofer,’ meaning ‘the good haven.’ The Hebrew equivalent of Memphis is either Noph or Moph.

In other words, the cities of Sin, No and Noph are names that are more native to Hebrew Bibles although there are eight known translations that retain their origins. They are the NKJV, KJV, JPS Tanakh 1917, American KJV, Darby, ERV, Webster’s and Young’s Literal Translation. It is this of the three names that the rabbi has chosen to highlight.

What is interesting about the name Sin is that in other forms, it refers to the frontier city on the Nile. Written in Hebrew originally as סִין (and derived from סִינִים‎), Sin is also used to refer to the inhabitants of the land of Sin itself. The use of the name also appears in Isaiah 49:12 just as it does in the above passage (Ezek 30:15-16). The name Sin can also be found expressed as Sinim, which many scholars associate with China because in etymological terms, it closely resembles Sinae, which is the Latinate expression of Qin, in reference to the kingdom state of Qin founded in the year 778BC by Qin Shi Huang-Di.

Digging more into the name Sin reveals even more interesting little nuggets that have little to do with Egypt. For example, the 1879 Young’s Analytical Concordance to the Bible questions rhetorically if Sin refers to “a people in the Far East; the Chinese?” The Septuagint, on the other hand, has insistently pointed in a similar direction, which explains its reference to “an eastern country.”

Despite contemporary belief that the Jews never found their way to China but this might not be correct. After all, there is now proof that the people of Qin were exposed to the first four books of the Old Testament, which goes some way in explaining the embedding of biblical narratives in many of the classical Chinese characters. For now, let’s look at what the prophet Isaiah has to say about Sin or in this case, Sinim:

“Behold, these will come from afar; and lo, these will come from the north and from the west, And these from the land of Sinim.” (Isa 49:12, NASB, m.e.).

In this passage, God made the promise that the lost Israelites would return from the Diaspora, which, among other parts of the world, also included “the land of Sinim.”

Quite interestingly, the background behind the name Sinim may be linked to a tribe living in heavily fortified hamlets cosseted in the high mountain ranges of West Szechuan, perched on the Chinese-Tibetan border. Called Chiang-Min, they were said to be descendants of the ancient Israelites who settled in China hundreds of years before Christ.

In the early 20th century, Scottish-born Protestant missionary Tommy Torrance (1871-1959) was despatched to Chengdu fresh from completing his theological training in 1895 but disagreements compelled him home. After some persuasion, he returned 16 years later, in 1911, but this time with a wife in tow. Again he came home after encountering interferences but in 1934, he made his final return though without his family. This time, he stayed for seven years. It was this time that he came across the Chi’ang (a.k.a. Chiang-Min) people whom he was convinced were part of the Lost Tribes of Israel that Isaiah prophesied. 

Torrance observed that the Chiang-Min tribe bore strong resemblances to the Israelite branch of the Semitic race in terms of customs and traditions that were unerringly very ancient Israelite. He wrote:

“The plough the Chiang use is similar to the ancient Israelite plough and is drawn by two oxen, never by an ox and an ass.”

By what he wrote, “never by an ox and an ass,” Torrance alluded to part of the Mosaic Law described in the Book of Deuteronomy, which says:

“You must not plough with an ox and a donkey harnessed together.” (Dt 22:10, NLT, m.e.)

NOTE: A donkey and an ass are interchangeable.

But of course it wasn’t just that. Torrance also discovered that the Chiang-Min were monotheistic, which set them apart from the usual Chinese practice of polytheism. And when in duress, they often cried out aloud something that sounded uncharacteristically as “Yahweh!” as if calling out to the God of Abraham. And then, there was the Chiang-Min priests who looked like splitting images of their Israelite counterparts in that they not only wore girdles that bound their robes but also held a sacred serpent-like rod just like the one Moses fashioned in the wilderness:

“Then the Lord told him, ‘Make a replica of a poisonous snake and attach it to a pole. All who are bitten will live if they simply looks at it!’ So Moses made a snake out of bronze and attached it to a pole. Then anyone who was bitten by a snake could look at the bronze snake and be healed!” (Num 21:8-9, NLT, m.e.)

But then, here’s the big mystery: Sin in Hebrew draws reference to China in one way or another but in the other translations, the different names used – such as Pelusium or even ‘Raamses’ – clearly describes a completely different place in ancient Egypt where it is often defined as a ‘stronghold.”

Just like ancient Hebrew, Modern Hebrew – founded by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (1858-1922) – also points to China. In English, we know that the etymological link from Sin to ‘Sinophile,’ taken to mean a person who likes all things Chinese. In another example, a Sino-American essentially means a naturalised American of Chinese origin.

But of course, all of those don’t necessarily mean that we can come to the same conclusion in Ancient Hebrew. Perhaps the best is to use Scripture to corroborate. Here’s another passage from Isaiah:

“‘I will make all My mountains a road, and My highways will be raised up. Behold, these will come from afar; and lo, these will come from the north and from the west, and these from the land of Sinim.’” (Isa 49:11-12, NASB, m.e.)

One way to better understand the intricacies here is to resort to some rabbinical literature (mefarshim) from the Mikraos Gedolos Tanakh (Hebrew Bible). Here, many Jewish scholars and rabbis look to the north and west in the passage as pointing to a land in the East. And in all likelihood, that’s China. In exegesis, Strong’s Concordance also mentions that, “Sinim is a distant Oriental region.” Put the two together and we might consider more seriously that the Hebrew idea of ‘east’ alludes to none other than China.

In revisiting Ezekiel 30:15-16:

“I will pour out My anger upon Sin, the stronghold of Egypt, and I will destroy the wealth of No. I will set fire to Egypt; Sin shall writhe in anguish and No shall be torn apart; and Noph [shall face] adversaries in broad daylight.” (Ezek 30:15-16, m.e.)

Rabbi Pinto’s reference to this message is a foreboding one. His vision affirms the idea that what is happening in China with the Wuhan Coronavirus could really be an expression of God’s wrath. Basically if we replace ‘Sin’ with ‘China,’ here’s how Ezekiel’s passage will read:

“I will pour out My anger upon China and I will destroy its wealth… China shall writhe in anguish and… shall be torn apart… and… shall face adversaries in broad daylight.”

Of course, that’s a long stretch and not exactly a very biblically astute thing to do. For the mere purpose of name replacement, it may be possible to see the rabbi’s message a little more clearly. The possibility that Sin could refer to China – at least in Isaiah’s and Ezekiel’s cases – is quite real even if there are some controversies to do with how some commentaries shape their arguments. In other words, it’s not conclusive but it certain warrants further investigation.

 Is the coronavirus part of eschatology?

None of us should be new to the idea of associating deadly diseases with the coming of the End Times. In fact, virtually every major cataclysmic event is somewhat a catalyst for many Christians to think of doom. SARS, Ebolavirus and then before that, the sudden proliferation of HIV/AIDS infections. Going beyond diseases and epidemics, signs of the end of the world were also evident with the sweeping Aceh tsunami in 2004 and then, seven years later with the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Even the growing series of earthquakes can be seen as a prelude to something more sinister.

When these catastrophic events occur, we often want to desperately lean on God for answers to age-old questions to do with when and how it will all end. But at the same time, some of us are also inclined to question why He’d allow such terrible disasters to take place where so many die often so tragically. In the midst of the terrifying Wuhan Coronavirus, for example, some of us would have liked God to confirm if it’s a sign of the End Times. In much the same way, many of us did the same when SARS came visiting between November 2002 and July 2003. Those nine months felt like nine years because fear and trembling were breathing down our neck from as close as Singapore. If SARS brought us to our knees, the Wuhan Coronavirus would make us jump out of our skin and in that sense, we keep looking to the Lord for whatever signs He could proffer.

Looking at Scripture for some indication, we can find instances in which God brought plagues and diseases to bring people to heel. Everyone including His Chosen People and His enemies would be compelled to bear witness to His awesome power over all of life. In the story of Moses projecting God’s will to Pharaoh, this was what He said to the stuttering prophet:

“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Get up early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh. Tell him, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let My people go, so they can worship Me. If you don’t, I will send more plagues on you and your officials and your people. Then you will know that there is no one like Me in all the earth. By now I could have lifted My hand and struck you and your people with a plague to wipe you off the face of the earth. But I have spared you for a purpose – to show you My power and to spread My fame throughout the earth.” (Ex 9:13-16, NLT, m.e.)

God’s message to Pharaoh was exemplary in its simplicity. He made it clear to the obstinate Egyptian leader that only He has sovereignty over all life including his. Furthermore His omnipotence covered the fullest extent of all life-threatening diseases, meaning that every single life-crippling disease is at His disposal. Indeed, for those who suffer their afflictions and those who died from them, God also knows their identities. And when all is said and done, He also has full knowledge of the Wuhan Coronavirus. However the Chinese authorities want to hide the truth from all of us, He already knows. Only fools would think they can conceal anything from Him.

In the Book of Leviticus, Moses wrote about how God warned His people of the heavy cost of disobedience:

“If even then you remain hostile toward Me and refuse to obey Me, I will inflict disaster on you seven times over your sins. I will send wild animals that will rob you of your children and destroy your livestock. Your numbers will dwindle and your roads will be deserted. And if you fail to learn the lesson and continue your hostility toward me, then I myself will be hostile toward you. I will personally strike you with calamity seven times over for your sins. I will send armies against you to carry out the curse of the covenant you have broken. When you run to your towns for safety, I will send a plague to destroy you there and you will be handed over to your enemies. I will destroy your food supply so that ten women will need only one oven to bake bread for their families. They will ration your food by weight and though you have food to eat, you will not be satisfied. If in spite of all this you still refuse to listen and still remain hostile toward Me, then I will give full vent to My hostility. I myself will punish you seven times over for your sins. Then you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters. I will destroy your pagan shrines and knock down your places of worship. I will leave your lifeless corpses piled on top of your lifeless idols and I will despise you. I will make your cities desolate and destroy your places of pagan worship. I will take no pleasure in your offerings that should be a pleasing aroma to Me.” (Lev 26:21-31, NLT, m.e.)

Later in the Book of Numbers, Moses wrote of the two occasions in which 14,700 (Num 16:49) and 24,000 (25:9) perished as a result of their respective plagues. Following the provision of the Mosaic Law, God issued His warning: obey or suffer the consequences. Though not exactly very pleasant reading, the Book of Deuteronomy tersely outlines this warning. To that, there is no question. The consequences were dire and they included “curses, confusion and frustration in everything you do until at last, you are completely destroyed for doing evil and abandoning Me” (Dt 28:20, NLT).

In the next verse, God not only added diseases as another consequence but He would unleash them “until none of you are left in the land you are about to enter and occupy.” The extent of graphic detail in which God went to in describing the disease is sobering. Some say it sounds a little like the Ebolavirus:

“The Lord will strike you with wasting diseases, fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew. These disasters will pursue you until you die.” (Dt 28:22, NLT, m.e.)

Young Christians are inclined to skip all this ghoulish reading and prefer to focus on the Pauline letters but in these parts of the Old Testament lay clear complexion of what God expects of us in the event that we disobey Him. They may be divisive for those who purely envision the Lord as wholesomely loving and merciful and nothing else. That is what prosperity theology promotes but it’s so hopelessly one-sided in the way we understand Him.

To put it simply, the same loving God can also be wrathful, furious and angry towards His own children. But when we choose to view Him through rose-tainted glass, we only get to understand what we want to understand. In other words, the full spectrum of how God truly feels towards everyone will simply escape us. We will have no understanding of the disciplining Father who seeks to straighten His children only because He loves them enough to want their wrongs righted. And if we do not understand this part of Him, there is little chance we will appreciate that through His tough love, He merely seeks our repentance so that He may then restore us back to Him.

The corollaries of 2 Chronicles

All of this brings us to what God said to Solomon in 2 Chronicles 7:13-14:

“At times I might shut up the heavens so that no rain falls or command grasshoppers to devour your crops or send plagues among you. Then if My people who are called by My Name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.” (NLT)

This passage is often misused because context is usually overlooked. If we apply this to the Wuhan Coronavirus – as some are inclined to – then it is important not to dismiss its contextual relevance. For that, we need to know the verses before and after so that with a clearer and bigger picture, we can determine if it fits into the appropriate narrative. At the same time, it is also useful to gain a historical understanding and cultural context behind what God meant when He said that to Solomon.

It is obvious that this is one of the more famous and often-quoted passages in the Bible and the reason for that is that it appears plain and straightforward enough to understand (without context, that is). Made famous recently by the 2015 feature film ‘War Room’ (directed and written by the Kendrick brothers), it is not difficult to see 2 Chr 7:13-14 establishing itself as a scriptural source of inspiration for many to draw from. Yet what it truly means (within proper context) could be something else. Hence before we see how it fits into the coronavirus narrative, it pays to dig a little deeper beforehand.

After Solomon dedicated the temple, God appeared at night to warn but assure him at the same time. Here is what He said to him:

“Then one night, the Lord appeared to Solomon and said, I have heard your prayer and have chosen this Temple as the place for making sacrifices.’ At times I might shut up the heavens so that no rain falls or command grasshoppers to devour your crops or send plagues among you. Then if My people who are called by My Name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.” (2 Chr 7:12-14, NLT, m.e.)

Reading it carefully, the three verses reveal how they pertain to Israel and the temple. At the same time, they also tell us that, every now and then (“at times”), God will send judgement upon the land using a variety of ways including drought (“no rain falls”), locusts (“grasshoppers to devour your crops”) or pestilence (“plagues”). That’s not too difficult to understand but then, a few verses down, the context becomes clearer.

Here’s a look at the preceding four verses:

“‘But if you or your descendants abandon Me and disobey the decrees and commands I have given you, and if you serve and worship other gods, then I will uproot the people from this land that I have given them. I will reject this Temple that I have made holy to honour My Name. I will make it an object of mockery and ridicule among the nations. And though this Temple is impressive now, all who pass by will be appalled. They will ask, ‘Why did the Lord do such terrible things to this land and to this Temple?’ ‘And the answer will be, ‘Because His people abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who brought them out of Egypt, and they worshipped other gods instead and bowed down to them. That is why He has brought all these disasters on them.’” (2 Chr 7:19-22, NLT, m.e.)

Given the oral tradition as the prime means of human communication at that time, there’s little doubt that Solomon was aware that God’s warning was a protraction of what Moses recorded in Deuteronomy 28. Back then, God had entered into a covenant with His people, promising to care for and prosper them but there was a condition and that was, they had to obey Him. Failure to do so would incur His wrath and curses and that, essentially, is His warning. Given that this was a covenantal relationship, we can also see two corollaries. In the first, prosperity was indelibly tied to Israel’s obedience. In the other, the converse applied, meaning hardship would result from disobedience.

This pair of corollaries is also echoed in the Book of Judges as part of the Mosaic Law. Chapter 2 bore reference to what we call, ‘The Cycle of the Judges’ where with Israel falling into sin, God would use another nation to judge them after which they would repent and, once again, call upon the Lord who then would raise up a judge to deliver them from destruction. Everything would be fine for a while until they would, once more, backslide into sin and the cycle would repeat itself over and again.

2 Chronicles 7:13-14 records God’s reminder to Solomon of the previous covenant complete with the same two corollaries – obey and be blessed or disobey and judgement will befall you. Quite importantly, one must understand that God wasn’t interested in judgement purely for judgement’s sake. Just as it was before, God’s purpose with Israel was to bring her into repentance and then pave the way for restoration to take place.

“Then if My people who are called by My Name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.” (2 Chr 7:14, NLT, m.e.)

That is why God reassured Solomon in verse 14 that if His people were to humble themselves, pray and repent, He will then deliver them from judgement. Therefore, in the right context, 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 speaks of God’s promise to Israel then and perhaps even now. And that promise is what the dual corollaries are about. We see that encased in the above verse – repent and return to the Lord and He will save them.

Now, if we look at 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 in the right context, we can see that many Christians have been misusing it. Incorrectly, it has become somewhat of a battle cry, which it shouldn’t because that is not its intention. Americans have been using it for as long as we can tell as part of their rallying call. In fact, 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 was one of several capstones for rallying conservatives and evangelical Christians to back Donald Trump in his 2016 presidential campaign. Interestingly, only recently, Malaysians were mimicking their American counterparts in using it as a rallying call in light of the political usurpation of power to topple the incumbent federal government. 

In its contemporary – but blighted – context, Christians use 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 to call God to heal their land on the condition that they call His Name, humble themselves, pray and seek His face and repent. This ‘healing’ is often taken to refer to the moral, political and economic complexion of the nation itself be it America or Malaysia or wherever. However the real question is whether or not this is appropriate or even right because unlike Israel, no other nation in the world possesses the same covenantal relationship with the Father, the U.S. included. By reshaping or even distorting the original context is at best misinformed and at worst, deceiving.

This covenantal relationship that Israel enjoys with God is unique and unprecedented. It expresses a Father-to-Chosen People exclusivity that is incomparable. No other nation on Earth has the same relationship but even so, that doesn’t mean that in the event of trouble, we cannot call upon Him to intervene. Of course, we can be prayerful and repentant as well because that will help when it comes to God. But then, there is also another important point of contention.

2 Chronicles 7:13-14 sets down the marker for ancient Israel to repent and seek the Lord en masse. That means the whole of Israel got down on her knees and went before God in complete humility. While that certainly doesn’t mean literally every single Israelite but it’s a call to the nation per se and in a single collective, Israel responded to the call and repented. In that sense, when some Christians in Malaysia used the same passage to rally all Christians to call His Name, humble themselves, pray and seek His face and then repent, it wasn’t just inappropriate but it was also wrong because they simply constituted a minority. On the other hand, Israel responded as a nation. That is not a minority.

Yet, that doesn’t mean that when a minority prays, the fate of their nation will or won’t change because that is not the point when it comes to 2 Chronicles 7:13-14. What we need to understand is that God’s promise to deliver was predicated on the repentance of an entire nation, one that is called Israel. In other words, it is not a minority-driven issue. So, when we apply 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 to Malaysia, it is not too difficult to understand that it is largely the true believers of Lord Jesus Christ who make up the minority or the ‘righteous remnant’ but by the same token, we also need to be aware that in its original context, we must observe the following two:

- Malaysia isn’t Israel: The original context focuses on a covenantal relationship and only Israel has it with God. Yet this shouldn’t stop us from seeking the Lord in prayer and supplication. It certainly doesn’t mean that God will not respond as well.

- This is a call to an entire nation: A minority or a righteous remnant does not constitute a whole nation. Again, that doesn’t mean God will not listen if we’re not praying as a collective nation.

Scripture does tell us that even though these two points undergird what 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 is about, there is at least one exception in the Book of Jonah where God turned around and spared the people of Nineveh after Jonah had preached to the Ninevites. The Ninevites were people whom Jonah understandably disliked because these pagan worshippers had long been nasty towards his fellow Israelites (Jnh 3). In that sense, Jonah’s reluctance to help them repent was not difficult to empathise with although it is still incorrect because God had commanded him to preach to them and offer a chance to atone for their sins. But this Ninevite lesson isn’t quite the same as calling the whole of Malaysia to kneel and repent and pray in humility to God.

Still, there is nothing inappropriate about confessing our sins to God and pray. In other words, we shouldn’t allow technicalities to come in between us and our Father. After all, as Christians, this is what we are born again to do. It is as much an expectation as it is our duty to do so in order that sin does not become a hindrance in our lives (Heb 12:1). At the same time, nothing should stop us from interceding for our nation and those in authority (1 Tim 2:1-2). It matters not whether we agree with the governing leadership in place because what is more important to God are our supplications.

When we call out to God to heal our nation, it is in His grace that He chooses to bless us. He may or may not but this is His sovereign right. To put this in a nutshell, God makes no iron-clad guarantee that He would deliver our nation from sorrow or wickedness. And if He doesn’t, we do not possess the right to hate or despise Him. We may not understand His reason but as the King of kings, Lord of lords, we accept in humility all His decisions. Our nation’s politics might be so mired or our economy might be in a logjam and badly needs to be put right. Deepening corruption might have poleaxed everything we might have wished for in our nation. But it is still for God to determine whether or not our nation will be saved and healed.

As children of God, our personal salvation is guaranteed (Rom 8:1) and by that too, He can and will use us to fulfil the plans He has not to harm us but to prosper us and to give us hope and a future (Jer 29:11-13). Just as Christ came to do the will of His Father, so too will we do the same that He has purposed us for. As believers, it is our calling to live godly lives, to seek God at all times and to commune with Him. Jesus states that is a royal commission to go share the Gospel so that we may spread the joy of the promise of eternal life to those who are yet to know.

To recap, therefore, nothing in Scripture tells us that God guarantees any nation (other than Israel) that He will heal and restore be it politically, culturally or economically. None whatsoever. And so, in the midst of being blighted by the Wuhan Coronavirus, getting on our knees to pray, seek His face and to repent in humility is not a problem at all. In fact, as Christians, it is what we are born to do but that does not mean that rallying a nation to do that as per 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 is correct. In that sense, we should stop twisting Scripture to fit our agenda.

 Healing from sicknesses

Talking about healing, the New Testament has numerous examples of Jesus doing just that to and for people who suffered from “every kind of disease and illness” (Mt 9:35). He has even “called His twelve disciples together and gave them authority to… heal every kind of disease and illness” (Mt 10:1, Lk 9:1). People were so in awe with Jesus’ power to heal that “all the sick people eagerly pushed forward to touch Him” (Mk 3:10). Indeed it was His healing powers that helped to establish His identity as truly the Son of God.

In Jesus’ days, we don’t need something the likes of the Wuhan Coronavirus to plague people. There were plentiful sicknesses around back then and some of them were debilitating while others were akin to life-long medical conditions. The point of all these sicknesses is that God allowed them to fulfil His own purposes so that ultimately, we may see miracles unfold in His glory. Unlike the advanced medical technologies today, many diseases back in Jesus’ days were intractable and man had no means to deal with them to any great effect. Jesus’ healing miracles were just that… they were incredible miracles at the right time and right place. They laid ample proof that He was truly the Son of God.

Sometimes diseases exist simply because they reflect a sad world creaking under the burden of sin. World-scale pandemics like the Wuhan Coronavirus could very well fit in this regard. For too long now, man has been living in a fallen world that is so replete with every form of transgression that brings nothing but displeasure to God. Ultimately, the point is we just don’t know if any pandemic has a particular spiritual cause or not. With more than 3,000 dead from the coronavirus, we really still don’t know. However what we are certain of is that God is in supreme control over the whole of Universe (Rom 11:36). He will work all things together for the good of those who know and love Him (8:28).

For Someone who is in total control over all life, it would mean He is completely aware of everything that takes place in the world. It doesn’t necessarily mean that He deliberately makes everything happen the way He wants them to. If we consider the lessons learned from the Book of Job, we will realise that sometimes, things happen not because God wills it but all the same, He is certainly aware that they do. A serious outbreak like the Wuhan Coronavirus is, in my view, a foreshadow of even greater pandemics that are yet to come and these will signal the End Times far more so than what we’re weathering today.

When envisioning the last days, Jesus did refer to the plagues of tomorrow, saying:

“There will be great earthquakes and there will be famines and plagues in many lands and there will be terrifying things and great miraculous signs from heaven.” (Lk 21:11, NLT, m.e.)

These ‘plagues of tomorrow’ are also mentioned in the Book of Revelations where two witnesses have the power vested in them “to shut the sky so that no rain will fall for as long as they prophesy” (Rev 11). They will also “turn the rivers and oceans into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they wish” (11:6). Five chapters later in Revelation 16, seven angels reveal the final severe judgements after unleashing the seven bowls of God’s wrath. With these, we lay witness to many terrible diseases that would likely put the coronavirus in the shade. They include:

1. “Horrible, malignant sores” (16:2)

2. The death of all sea creatures (v.3)

3. Incineration by “this blast of heat” (v.9)

4. More “pains and sores” (v.11)

5. History’s worst recorded “great earthquake” (v.18)

6. The destruction of Babylon (v.19)

7. The vanishing of “every island” and then the levelling of every visible mountain (v.20)

8. The abominable hailstones (v.21)

Living in a world awash with evil and wickedness, we cannot help but notice that everything around us will soon be falling apart. Big businesses will collapse under the weight of a teetering world economy. Unimaginable disasters will take place before our eyes in all forms. Secure buildings can fall all of a sudden. Bridges get washed away in terrible life-claiming floods. Tsunamis can return and sweep many lives away just like it did in Aceh not too long ago. Airliners can be taken out of the skill by a simple press of a button. Corruption of the worst kind can go brazenly unhindered even as we watch. The Wuhan Coronavirus certainly isn’t going to be the last we’ll see but perhaps it will return in an even deadlier form as mutations begin. So whether or not, the current global outbreak qualifies as one of these, no one knows for sure. While everyone may have his own opinion, none are authoritative or necessarily correct. Since we don’t have a date or time of Jesus’ return, we need to be cautious about the predictions we make and the opinions we hold concerning pandemics and whether they link to the eschatological truths that we learn scripturally.

Unbelievers will also have a different take on all this. Having no experience of Jesus as their Saviour, they are at a disadvantage in understanding what truly is going on in eschatological terms. Yet nothing stops them from appreciating the fragility of life on earth. With the plagues that have so far visited us in recent times, it sometimes feels like we’re walking on a tightrope – some survive and some don’t. When SARS hit almost two decades ago, over 700 deaths felt huge. The Wuhan Coronavirus dwarves that significantly enough to drive a wedge into our own sense of confidence. In other words, at any time, any of us can lose it.

Yet an even bigger picture tells us that if the Wuhan Coronavirus is shockingly terrifying – and it is – then hell is simply of no comparison. But here’s the big relief – we are Christians and our lives are enwrapped in a God-guaranteed gold-standard eternal salvation. Wearing that assurance means we are thankful that it is the blood of Christ shed on the cross that saves us from the very worst that plagues can throw at us. And that includes the Wuhan pandemic that we’re facing today.

“But He was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.” (Isa 53:5, NLT, m.e.)

Read this one again: “He was whipped so we could be healed.” Jesus took the lashings made far worse because the Romans would have used whips that would tear chunks of flesh out of His back. We know very well that He didn’t deserve any of this. We know He felt the pain of loneliness at that point, which was why later on the cross, Jesus cried out, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani” (Gk. Ἠλὶ ἠλὶ λεμὰ σαβαχθάνι), meaning, “My God, My God, why Thou hast forsaken Me” (Mt 27:45-46, Mk 15:34). In the Book of Psalm is the foretelling of the same cry, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are You so far from saving Me, so far from My words of groaning?” (Ps 22:1, 71:11)

Jesus bore the price of our sins, not His for He is sinless. But in doing so, we are able to recover from our sins. It is this healing that offers us a far larger picture of how even the worst coronaviruses cannot touch us. Our spiritual restoration to God through Christ allows us to rise about even the most debilitating pandemics that life can throw at us.

Today, the Wuhan Coronavirus dominates headlines around the world, our coffee table chats and even our thoughts and prayers. It is tempting to allow it to grab our attention away from God but let’s not. Instead, let us remember that Jesus was whipped so that we could all be healed and transcend all of life’s obstacles.

“And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgement, so also Christ was offered once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. He will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to all who are eagerly waiting for Him.” (Heb 9:27-28, NLT, m.e.)

I wish you well no matter what the Wuhan Coronavirus might throw at all of us. Just don’t take your eyes off the main reason for our very being – Christ.