Fear, nationalism won’t defeat coronavirus
In 1624, when the poet John Donne wrote, “send not to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee,” deadly waves of the bubonic plague regularly swept through England.
Shortly before he wrote those famous words, Donne had believed himself close to death. Yet, in his sermon, he spoke not of fear and retreat from the world, but famously invoked that “no man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” His words have lived on through the centuries because of their deep humanity and compassion. We would do well to remember them today as a new epidemic spreads around the world.
In a time when death stalked the land, the internationalism that John Donne recognized in his writings also led to the rise of modern science. Disease does not recognize national borders; the fact that science also does not recognize borders may be our salvation.
Even as fear and the blame game have overshadowed the international efforts underway to combat the disease, research scientists at institutes around the world work on a vaccine. A number of doctors in China have already lost their lives in providing care for patients; others continue to risk their own lives faced with stretched resources and exhausting conditions. Physicians around the world have raced to run trials of experimental treatments for the virus.
In response to the spread of the disease, the first impulse of many governments has been to shut down borders, even amid doubts of the effectiveness of such measures. Certain travel restrictions may well be necessary, but we must resist efforts to turn these measures into attacks against globalization.
Not only are such criticisms futile — it was already impossible to sever global connections in the 17th century, much less the 21st — but they also undermine the only effective measures against a pandemic: global collaboration and support of the public health and scientific institutions racing to find a cure.
In the early weeks of the disease, media coverage attributing its spread to facets of Chinese culture and history were unhelpful at best and at worst spread stereotypes and cultural stigma. The absurdity of assigning characteristics of a virus to a specific people or culture became glaringly clear after its spread beyond China. Meanwhile Chinese restaurants in the U.S. have seen their business crater in places with no recorded case of the disease, and racist incidents are on the rise. The shadow of fear has now expanded to include South Koreans, Iranians and Italians.
In such moments of crisis we need to push back against those who would politicize the epidemic to push a message of fear. No man is an island — true in 1624 and still apropos in 2020.
Shellen Xiao Wu is an associate professor of history at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Live interview on coronavirus
William Schaffner, M.D., a preventive medicine and infectious disease professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, will be discussing the latest on the coronavirus, what it is, and how the public should react.
Tennessean Opinion and Engagement Director David Plazas will interview Dr. Schaffner at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday on Tennessean.com. Email him your questions at dplazas@tennessean.com.