Is China to blame for the spread of COVID-19?

It has been almost two years since China announced the discovery of a new virus, which we call COVID-19 today. According to Our World in Data, as of today, there have been more than 273 million cases of COVID-19 infections worldwide, with more than 5 million deaths. There is no dispute that China was the first country to report cases of COVID-19. However, whether COVID-19 was already spreading in other countries at the same time is still something being debated, and will probably remain a mystery forever.

The question is, "Is China to blame for the spread of COVID-19?"

In a way, I think that answer is yes. Not because of the conspiracy theories out there about the virus coming from a Chinese lab, or that it was created as a biological weapon, or that the Chinese government did poorly in containing the virus. Rather, I think it has to do with the fact that, it was reported by China.

Geopolitics has resulted in mistrust of China, and we ended up with a mixed bag of responses. Some countries, especially those nearer to China geographically, took the matter quite seriously and took early measures to watch the situation and adopt the necessary travel controls. However, the United States, given its beef with China, plus the internal political situation which required China to be made a punching bag for everything, took a much different approach. Which eventually led to COVID-19 being politicised, even though it is a medical issue and not a political one. But politics tend to have greater sway than medicine, since one is based on facts (which means only the educated understand what is happening) while the other is based on people's perception (which can led to all kinds of actions depending on individual judgment).

And the moment the United States took a different approach toward COVID-19, its allies in Europe and Australia had to stay more or less aligned. Even if they knew better. And once all those conspiracy theories start to spread, with baseless accusations about China made to consolidate the political base, you end up with a vicious cycle of endless self-indoctrination. The rest is history.

Imagine if the first country to report COVID-19 was Japan. Or New Zealand. Or Brazil. There would not have been that geopolitical aspect to such a report. People and governments around the world would probably have been able to deal with COVID-19 by focusing on it as a medical issue and not a political one. Politicians probably won't use it for the brainwashing of their political bases, and we might actually have some form of consolidated global response to quickly contain the spread.

So yes, in a way, I think we can say that China is a blame. As much as we can say that someone told you your house is on fire, but because he is your rival at work, you didn't believe him. And then, when you return to find your house gone, you blame him for allowing the fire to burn. In a logical world, this would be nonsense. But in the world we live in today, people will believe anything.