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Plagues are one enemy we’ve never quite been able to conquer. While famine has a strong record, plagues give a sense of uniquely existential dread born out of our evolutionary memory. If you

ever wondered why certain animals and insects make you shudder, it’s because we associate them with plague. It makes you wonder why the horror genre hasn’t used epidemics more. Surely when

it comes to the fear of the unknown, dying in a horrifying and painful way from something you can’t see or understand must be up there? The coronavirus doesn’t seem to be another Black Death

— yet. From what we know (or rather, what the Communist Party of China (CPC) has allowed us to know) with a death rate of 2-3 per cent, it isn’t as deadly as bubonic plague, but it may be

more contagious. Time will certainly tell. Perhaps it will be contained in a similar way to swine flu; perhaps not. While an old-fashioned influenza now doesn’t seem so bad, the Spanish flu

epidemic of 1918-19 killed around 3-5 per cent of the global population, so it shouldn’t be underestimated. The coronavirus seems to be a craftier foe than SARS, swine flu or even Ebola. If

the figure of 3.8 R0 (its contagion level) is correct, that far surpasses other recent infections passed from animals. Even worse, it seems to spread before symptoms are revealed. At the

time of writing there are approaching 10,000 cases and 212 deaths in at least 20 countries. The first cases in Britain have just been confirmed. Clearly, this thing needs to be taken very

seriously. Last night, watching the WHO Press Conference, I felt my stomach slowly turn. Tedros Adhanom, the Director-General of the WHO (a fitting acronym), found a way in his announcement

to declare a global pandemic, while at the same time discouraging nations from taking protective measures. There was, he said, “no need to disturb international travel or trade”. Even more

bizarrely, he was deferential towards Xi Jinping’s China to such an astonishing degree that even Communist Party officials must have been embarrassed. This is the same China that has likely

committed genocide in Tibet, is attempting something similar in Xinjiang, and may in the future do the same to Hong Kong. This is also the same country that covered up the SARS outbreak in

2003 and harvests organs from political prisoners. The same China that has created a dystopia in which every individual is monitored through facial recognition, speech is controlled,

citizens have no rights and have been reduced to economic units through a social credit system. The Director-General praised China’s clampdown on “rumours”, which actually involved a new law

where any rumour (as defined by the CPC) can result in a seven-year jail sentence. He praised their transparency, despite a complete shutdown of information and the arrest of journalists

and citizens trying to provide that “transparency”. He praised their fast response, despite China having known about the virus since early December and initially ignoring it. China later

allowed a banquet in Wuhan of roughly 100,000 people to go ahead on January 18, rather than lose face and reveal the scale of the pandemic. What was this WHO official playing at? If nothing

else, the love affair Tedros has with China makes for great comedy, something we may soon sorely need. He couldn’t go two sentences without praising them. But the cold hard truth is that our

global institutions would rather sacrifice innocent lives and worship at the feet of tyrants than put our “interconnectedness” at peril — the global economy is now so completely reliant

upon it. Perhaps it’s time for nation states to re-examine themselves. What is the point, after all, of sovereignty if we lose all self-sufficiency? Britain has just signed a contract with

Huawei (which may as well be China’s NSA) to contribute to its 5G system. We still haven’t stopped all air travel from China. The line in the sand between co-operation, free trade and

self-preservation has just disappeared. There’s something more too, and it’s not just about GDP. One gets the impression that on some level, a global institution like the WHO really is

impressed by China’s level of population control. After all, free speech is inconvenient when you’re as incompetent as these clowns. So maybe the Director-General was just being honest.