Coronavirus, Chinese American Scientists and Racial Profiling

As the coronavirus crisis is ending in China in March 2020, the U.S. declared a national emergency.  Dr. Xifeng Wu (吴息凤) published an article titled "6 lessons from China's Zhejiang Province and Hangzhou on how countries can prevent and rebound from an epidemic like COVID-19" in the World Economic Forum on March 12, 2020. It offers valuable lessons the global community including the U.S. could learn at national and local levels.

Dr. Wu is Dean and Professor of School of Public Health, Vice President of The Second Affiliated Hospital, Director of National Institute for Data Science in Health and Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.  She joined Zhejiang University in March 2019.

Dr. Wu is also a naturalized U.S. citizen.  She was Director, Center for Public Health and Translational Genomics and Professor, Department of Epidemiology at the MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC) in Houston. 

Dr. Wu was subjected to multi-year harassment and investigations.  She was put on administrative leave for over a year.  During that time, she was not allowed to return to her research laboratory, talk to researchers in her research group and after three months all her research grants were reassigned to other researchers. In other words, her research career was put on hold since December 2017, immediately after MDACC turned over 10-years record of 23 researchers over to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and 8 months before MDACC received the letters from the National Institute of Health (NIH) in August 2018.

Dr. Wu retired from MDACC in early 2019.  Several other Chinese American scientists were also forced to either retire or leave. 

Dr. Wu is one of many victims of ongoing racial profiling.  While she is able to use her expertise to combat COVID-19 in China, her family still lives in Houston.  This is a vivid example of how profiling results in U.S. loss of talent, competitiveness, and leadership in today's science and technology when we need them the most.  

---

6 Lessons Learned from Coronavirus Experience in Zhejiang and Hangzhou

---

1. Speed and accuracy are the keys to identification and detection
2. Make the right decisions at the right time, the right place, for the right people
3. Big data and information technology are important to avoiding a rebound
4. Evaluate medical resources and response systems. Are we ready for a pandemic? How much stock do we need? Do we have enough health care personnel, and how do we protect them?
5. Implementation of preventive measures in communities, schools, businesses, government offices and homes can influence the trajectory of this epidemic
6. Keep the public well informed

Read the full report: http://bit.ly/2Qjea09

Links and References

2020/05/20 World Affairs Council: The Public Health Response to Covid-19 in Zhejiang Province and Washington State – Virtual Program

2020/03/18 ProPublica: The Trump Administration Drove Him Back to China, Where He Invented a Fast Coronavirus Test
                    Chronicle of Higher Education: Hounded Out of U.S., Scientist Invents Fast Coronavirus Test in China

2020/03/12 World Economic Forum:  6 lessons from China's Zhejiang Province and Hangzhou on how countries can prevent and rebound from an epidemic like COVID-19

​2019/06/20 South China Morning Post: Creating a climate of fear for Chinese scientists in the US benefits neither Washington nor Beijing

2019/06/17 Next Shark: FBI Accused of Targeting Chinese Americans Trying to Cure Cancer for ‘Spying’

2019/06/14 Clean Technica: FBI & NIH Demonize Chinese Researchers As Trump-Inspired Paranoia Spreads Across America
                    Axios: U.S. targeting Chinese cancer researchers

2019/06/13 Bloomberg Businessweek: The U.S. Is Purging Chinese Cancer Researchers From Top Institutions

2019/04/19 Science: Exclusive: Major U.S. cancer center ousts ‘Asian’ researchers after NIH flags their foreign ties

2016/10/21 Houston Chronicle: Research: Dr. Xifeng Wu