Letter: Letter on coronavirus in China was ‘pure propaganda’

Posted 2/23/20

To the editor:

My name is John A. Bagley, age 22, and I am a resident of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and a student senator at the University of Rhode Island. As the new year started rolling along, I …

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Letter: Letter on coronavirus in China was ‘pure propaganda’

Posted

To the editor:

My name is John A. Bagley, age 22, and I am a resident of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and a student senator at the University of Rhode Island. As the new year started rolling along, I found the earliest American news articles about the coronavirus now named COVID-19.

My work in the Student Senate has been to monitor this disease. As soon as it showed up in Massachusetts, my alarms went off. URI had students in China, and I worried about their safety. So I have been working with the administration of URI to spread accurate information about the virus to students. But now, misinformation is being spread within my own town’s newspaper.

I am of course talking about the opinion piece by Kevin Spencer titled, “How I am surviving in China.” It speaks of his experience in the country amid the COVID-19 crisis, and paints a wildly different picture from the images of China we have been seeing recently. I am relieved to know a Portsmouth native is healthy and safe in a country as caustic as China, but I must point out what I found terribly odd within his piece.

Speaking of the country, Spencer states that it is “amazing how the government is able to take control of this situation.” I find this assertion ridiculously hilarious. The control that Spencer praises includes the abduction of possibly infected citizens, forced mass quarantines not seen in the USA, the arrest of medical professionals that spread information about the virus, and the censorship of citizens. China’s iron fist approach to COVID-19 has really shown their hand and how they really feel about the “safety of their people.”

And the best part is, these methods did not even work. The Wuhan government ignored the virus, and let is spread. They quarantined the city far too late. The government bottlenecked information to other countries. Their shoddy health system and slow response time has allowed over 2,000 deaths across their country.

The government of China is responsible for COVID-19. They allowed the free animal trade market where COVID-19 and other coronavirus’ infect humans. They silenced doctors and citizens and quarantined a city beyond the point of infection simply to save face to the world. They have proven both with COVID-19 and with SARS in the early 2000s that they are not mature enough to handle an epidemic.

And in the middle of the article, an oddity. “It doesn’t feel like the USA people would be prepared for something as contagious as this virus let alone any mass spreading illness.” Uhm, what? “The USA people”? No native English speaker would say something like this. Did he mean “American people” or “The USA government”?

It is my personal belief that China censored this article before it came to us. After all, they monitor all information leaving their country. Until Mr. Spencer returns to America, I’d be wary of anything he or any American sends to us from the authoritative and narcissistic country of China. Pure propaganda.

John A. Bagley

68 Lilac Lane

Portsmouth

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Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.