OPINION: Jennifer A. Grossman - My Name is Coronavirus

I came from a long, long line of other viruses – all wearing our fatal family crown.  

And like my forebears, I was bred to spread.

I made a daring break, and found my way to the wet markets of Wuhan, where all sorts of beasts were butchered. The local population had built up something of an immunity to my family, but I was different.  And I was impatient.

I found an individual host here, another there...but my greatest host of all turned out to be the Chinese Dictatorship.  I work best in secrecy, and turns out, so do they…

So when a whistleblower – Dr. Li Wen Liang – tried to warn other medics of my mission, the Chinese police paid him a visit, made him stop and ordered him to return to work, where….I was able to infect him!  Silly Dr. Liang, he wanted to preserve life, and in the process, lost his….but my protectors in the Chinese government wanted to preserve power.

While this secrecy gave me a key window to spread in China – it gave me an even greater opportunity to travel abroad, and infect an unsuspecting global population.

The obvious next stop on my world tour was China’s close ally, Iran, where mullahs made my work easy.  Obviously it helped that so many great minds had fled during their revolution – and the totalitarian religious regime’s subjugation of women meant that mysticism, not merit, determined who could even become a doctor.

Italy next provided an unexpected boon. Fortunately for me Italians were more focused on stopping the viral spread of racism, and so left the doors wide open to me.  I’m especially thankful to Florence Mayor Dario Nardella who launched a “Hug a Chinese” Day.  Though scientists tried to stop me, I found a powerful ally in Political Correctness, and a rather feeble opponent in Italy’s Single-Payer Healthcare System.

As those infected died, or survived, in one country after another, I realized I needed more than short-term hapless hosts – I needed a long-term plan.  I’d found many allies along the way, but I also knew my ultimate adversaries – creative individuals operating in a free market – had eliminated one disease after another.  If I could find a way to rein them in, my reign of ruin could eventually triumph over civilization itself. 

And so I set my sights on the land where my innovative, capitalistic adversaries congregated: The United States of America. 

Read more at The Atlas Society.

A former vice-president for the Dole Corporation, and speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush, Jennifer A. Grossman is president of the Atlas Society.