Saturday, October 10, 2020

Calling the Wuhan Virus the Wuhan Virus Is Racist...Or is it?

The naming of a virus or disease after a location — including a lily-white location like Lyme, Connecticut (Lyme Disease) — is just how it’s done and has been done for a long time.

All of a sudden it's now Racist, even though the very same media declaring it Racist is the very same media that first called it the “Chinese Virus” or the “Wuhan Virus” over and over back in January.

Examples:

Ø “Japan and Thailand Confirm New Cases of Chinese Coronavirus,” The New York Times, 1/15/20

Ø “The CDC and Homeland Security begin screening for Chinese Coronavirus at three major US airports as outbreak spreads in Asia,” CNBC, 1/17/20

Ø “Vaccine for new Chinese Coronavirus in the works,” CNN, 1/20/20

Ø “First U.S. case of potentially deadly Chinese Coronavirus confirmed in Washington state,” Washington Post, 1/21/20

Ø “Chinese Coronavirus outbreak has reached U.S. shores, CDC says,” Los Angeles Times, 1/21/20

Ø “The First Case Of The Chinese Coronavirus Has Hit The US, CDC Reports,” Buzzfeed, 1/21/20

Ø “First case of Chinese Coronavirus confirmed in Washington state,” NBC’s Today Show, 1/24/20

Ø “Chinese Coronavirus infections, death toll soar as fifth case is confirmed in U.S.,” Washington Post, 1/26/20

Ø “Japan confirms case of new Chinese virus, spread is ‘concerning,'” Reuters, 1/15/20

Ø “How the Chinese virus outbreak impacts Lunar New Year travel,” National Geographic, 1/24/20

Ø “China Coronavirus ‘spreads before symptoms show,'” BBC, 1/26/20

Ø “Over a thousand ‘likely’ infected by Wuhan virus in China: Study,” Al Jazeera, 1/18/20

Ø “Stop the Wuhan virus,” Nature Magazine editorial, 1/21/20)

Ø “China confirms Wuhan virus can be spread by humans,” CNN, 1/22/20

Ø “First U.S. Case Reported of Deadly Wuhan Virus,” Wall Street Journal, 1/22/20

Ø “Here are the symptoms of the deadly Wuhan Coronavirus and when you should be worried,” Business Insider, 1/22/20

Ø “Something Far Deadlier Than The Wuhan Virus Lurks Near You,” Kaiser Health News, 1/24/20

Ø “With Wuhan virus genetic code in hand, scientists begin work on a vaccine,” Reuters, 1/24/20

Ø “The Wuhan Virus: How to Stay Safe,” Foreign Policy, 1/25/20

Ø “Something Far Deadlier Than The Wuhan Virus Lurks Near You,” USA Today, 1/29/20

Ø “10-Year-Old Boy Raises Fears Wuhan Virus Could Spread Undetected,” Bloomberg, 1/29/20

Ø “Your Questions About Wuhan Coronavirus, Answered, National Public Radio, 1/30/20

Ø “Will the Wuhan virus become a pandemic?” The Economist, 1/30/20

To sum this up, the media floods these words and terms into the American Lexicon, and then sanctimoniously turns around and attacks those who repeat their words by calling them Racist.

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You have now entered Fella’s Oh Yea Department. This Department is used when someone contradicts me or does not believe me and I get my dander (whatever that is) up and I say, “Oh yea! I’ll show you!”...

Here are 17 other diseases named after populations or places:

Ø West Nile Virus...Named after the West Nile District of Uganda discovered in 1937.

Ø Guinea Worm...Named by European explorers for the Guinea coast of West Africa in the 1600s.

Ø Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever...Named after the mountain range spreading across western North America first recognized first in 1896 in Idaho.

Ø Lyme Disease...Named after a large outbreak of the disease occurred in Lyme and Old Lyme, Connecticut in the 1970s.

Ø Ross River Fever...Named after a mosquito found to cause the disease in the Ross River of Queensland, Australia by the 1960s. The first major outbreak occurred in 1928.

Ø Omsk Hemorrhagic Fever...Named after its 1940s discovery in Omsk, Russia.

Ø Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever...Named in 1976 for the Ebola River in Zaire located in central Africa.

Ø Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS)...Also known as “camel flu,” MERS was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and all cases are linked to those who traveled to the Middle Eastern peninsula.

Ø Valley Fever...Valley Fever earned its nickname from a 1930s outbreak San Joaquin Valley of California, though its first case came from Argentina.

Ø Marburg Virus Disease...Named after Marburg, Germany in 1967.

Ø Norovirus...Named after Norwalk, Ohio after an outbreak in 1968.

Ø Zika Fever...First discovered in 1947 and named after the Zika Forest in Uganda.

Ø Japanese Encephalitis...Named after its first case in Japan in 1871.

Ø German Measles...Named after the German doctors who first described it in the 18th century. The disease is also sometimes referred to as “Rubella.”

Ø Spanish Flu...While the true origins of the Spanish Flu remain unknown, the disease earned its name after Spain began to report deaths from the flu in its newspapers.

Ø Lassa Fever...Named after the being found in Lassa, Nigeria in 1969.

Ø Legionnaire’s Disease...Named in 1976 following an outbreak of people contracting the lung infection after attending an American Legion convention in Philadelphia.

The English Language is always evolving. Fella thinks we are not far from the day when Merriam-Webster will have this new entry for Media...The English Language is always evolving. Fella thinks we are not far from the day when Merriam-Webster will have this new entry for Media...

me·​dia | \ ˈmē-dē-ə  \

plural medias

Definition of media

a singular or plural in construction MASS MEDIA

b medias plural members of the mass media

c foolishness


Would I kid u?

Smartfella

 

2 comments:

Bobby Tony said...

While not technically a location, Montezuma's revenge, certainly should qualify as a non racist reference to a whole country (insert any location here)though usually associated with Mexico.

Anonymous said...

Absolutely Right On!