WHERE did the virus causing the current pandemic come from? How did it get to a food market in Wuhan, China, from where it is thought to have spilled over into humans? The answers to these questions are gradually being pieced together, and the story they tell makes for uncomfortable reading…
This article first appeared in The Observer on 28 March 2020. To continue reading, click here.
WHEN I get stressed, a patch of annoying red eczema appears on the inside of my upper right arm. The doctor gives me some cream to rub on it, but I also know that to stop it coming back I have to deal with the underlying problem…
This article first appeared in The Guardian on 25 March 2020. To continue reading, click here.
IN 2018 global health expert Jonathan D Quick, of Duke University in North Carolina, published a book titled The End of Epidemics: The Looming Threat to Humanity and How to Stop It. In it he prescribed measures by which the world could protect itself against devastating disease outbreaks of the likes of the 1918 flu, which killed millions and set humanity back decades. He is the former chair of the Global Health Council and a long-term collaborator of the World Health Organization (WHO)…
This article first appeared in The Guardian on 1 March 2020. To continue reading, click here.
ON 28 January 2020 at the Great Hall of the People on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square – a symbol of the Chinese Communist Party’s political might – President Xi Jinping met Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO), to discuss the current coronavirus outbreak. “The epidemic is a devil,” Xi said. “We cannot let the devil hide.” …
This article first appeared on the cover of New Statesman, issue 21-27 February 2020. To continue reading, click here.
IMPERIAL War Museum, London, 4 May 2016. China’s participation in the First World War was a defining moment in modern Chinese and world history and the beginning of China’s journey toward internationalisation. The aim of this symposium was to extend the dimensions of our collective memory of the war – and the ensuing ‘flu pandemic – along with investigations of the significance of these to China’s subsequent role in international relations. Held on May Fourth, the date of the symposium commemorates the May Fourth Revolution which followed China’s betrayal at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919…
I spoke at the symposium on the possible Chinese origins of the flu that wasn’t Spanish.