Bill Maher Defends Calling COVID-19 “Chinese” Virus As A Product Of Wet Markets, Draws Online Outrage
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Bill Maher has stirred the social media pot with a simple question: “Why should China get a pass?”
Maher posed that question Friday to point out the hypocrisy of ignoring the Wuhan, China wet market origin of the coronavirus when so many diseases are named after places.
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“There are people who would rather die from the virus than call it by the wrong name,” Maher said, reeling off a list of diseases that were named after spots, including MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome,) Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and the Spanish flu.
“It’s not racist to point out that eating bats is batshit crazy,” he said, adding, “We should blame China. Not Chinese Americans. If the sun was exploding, Twitter would pile on the first guy who called it a dwarf star.”
“This has nothing to do with Asian-Americans. We don’t have the luxury of indulging a country whose habits cause problems. Viruses come from China like shortstops come from the Dominican Republic.”
He concluded by calling on China to use its dictatorial powers to finally close its wet markets.”If the China military had purposely infected this country with a bioweapon, we’d be at war with them. This one hurt our economy a little more than the currency manipulation.”
Maher’s rant and the online reactions:
China is a dictatorship that, for decades, enforced a one child per family policy under penalty of forced sterilization. But they can't close down the farmer's market from hell? #CoronaVirus #WetMarkets pic.twitter.com/pvkfhdTk4i
— Bill Maher (@billmaher) April 11, 2020
GEEZ, DO SOME RESEARCH!! In 2015 (meaning totally unrelated to Covid-19) the @WHO issued a recommendation to stop naming these after their origins precisely to minimize negative impacts on those people and places. #FactsMatter #FactsNotFear https://t.co/4S5DinIxLp
— Howard Ho (@ho_howard) April 11, 2020
The #WuhanFlu came from the #WetMarkets of Wuhan. As uncomfortable as it is to point a finger, these markets must be abolished. To protect the wild species that are often kept alive and slaughtered in situ, and to protect humanity from these cross-bred viruses.
— PG21stcentury (@pg21stcentury) April 11, 2020
The only problem with calling the latest virus the Chinese Virus is who is using the term and why he’s doing it. Trump has no interest in resolving the sources of these diseases. He’s using the term to ignite the lowest of his supporters.
— Keith Thompson (@ktpinnacle) April 11, 2020
Spanish flu originated in USA, not Spain. The news about it came out in Spain because they had less wartime censorship. Names can be misleading. #Coronavirus
— Steven R Daugherty (@srdaugherty) April 11, 2020
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