The virus of discord

Audio 02:42

By: Amaury de Rochegonde Follow

Information on the coronavirus has become the subject of a power struggle between China, the United States and Iran.

Publicity

We remember the omerta that accompanied the alert given by Doctor Li Wenliang on December 30, when he revealed, on a cat of former medical students, that a syndrome resembling SARS had justified a quarantined in his hospital in Wuhan. As we know, he was immediately arrested and forced to sign a statement speaking of a false rumor, before being caught up in the epidemic and dying, praised as a hero while the local authorities were vilified on social networks.

In China, the epicenter of the disease, information around the coronavirus has always been considered eminently strategic. The aim is both to show that the country is controlling the situation, by communicating medical data with the rest of the world, and to reject any questioning of this control. Three Wall Street Journal journalists were kicked out after their newspaper headlined that China was the " real sick man of Asia ", with the editorial alarmed by the threat to the global economy.

In Iran, another major center of the coronavirus, we are not far from conspiracy when President Hassan Rohani declared that " the spread of panic between people is only a plot woven by our enemies ". Unfortunately for him, the images of the deputy minister of health infected with the virus, coughing and wiping his forehead at a rostrum with the government spokesman, had more effect on popular terror than the declarations reassuring of these same officials trying to make believe that the situation was under control.

Like the Chernobyl cloud or the videos showing an Airbus shot down by a missile, the coronavirus plays with borders. As it is impossible, at the moment, to halt its spread, large states are trying to control information. Even the United States, which has castigated the attitude of Iran, accused of reducing the number of victims, is no exception. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke of " censorship " in China, called on Iranian authorities to " tell the truth " as pressure has been put on independent journalists who publish messages on the subject in Iran . But at the same time, Donald Trump lambasted the media, starting with CNN, which he accuses of panicking and panicking the markets, at the risk of tarnishing his economic record.

Irrational media management of the coronavirus ... Most countries today are waiting to be struck within them to take the full measure of the disease. Even if it means over-reacting.

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• Media
• coronavirus
• Health and Medicine