When I was in Philadelphia with a girlfriend that had grown up in New York and gone to school in Philly, we were laughing about how the announcement of a two or three day storm caused stripped grocery store shelves, a two day storm would do that.

Stores stock an amount of food such as bread that supplies a couple of days demand. How much bread does a couple go through, a loaf in five days, a family a couple? But people have this stock pile mentality that has them grabbing several loaves of bread, more than they will possibly eat, and it's that way with everything.

The checker at the store was laughing and saying people had baskets piled as full as they could get with cleaning supplies and frozen goods. My wife is shopping right now and all she wants is what she normally gets every week. We have the staples that will last us for weeks if we have to stay home.

My point here is asking what it is that has people losing touch with any reality of what they will need, it's mindless grabbing unspecified amounts.

"xenophobic": undue fear or undue contempt of strangers or foreigners, especially as reflected in political or cultural views

_If_ the world were so simple, that this v***s originated in one place and could be contained in that place, then closing borders to that place (or against people coming from that place) would be logical and not xenophobic.

Border security is sometimes useful as a temporary measure. In this case, it might slow the spread of the v***s. Slowing the spread of the v***s is good (but at what cost? -- and I'm not talking only about money).

However, in the _real_ world, "calling this ... Chinese v***s and closing our borders to foreigners coming from Asia and Europe" would probably either _be_ xenophobic or lead quickly to xenophobia:

For one thing, emphasizing that it came from _China_ might lead, in the popular imagination, to the idea that China is "at fault" and somehow to be despised for it. (That would probably be unreasonable.)

For another thing, it's impractical to try to close off such a large part of the world.

Also, by the time the v***s was even discovered, it was probably already in half a dozen countries (in undetected cases: people who didn't even know they had the v***s). By now it's in more than a hundred countries (including ours).

Border security, or immigration security, or even selective rejection of some immigrants by nationality, might slow the spread of the v***s, and _anything_ that slows the spread of the v***s is potentially a good thing, but the harm done (such as xenophobia, or such as unfairness) might outweigh the good. Besides, it's not a full solution, just a temporary slowing down; the v***s would almost surely get here anyway (similarly as our v***ses go over there).

A better way to combat the v***s is to focus on other approaches, such as more widespread testing for the v***s.

I read somewhere, in passing (not really verified yet), that the W.H.O. offered us test kits that worked, but the U.S. declined them, and instead developed its own test kits that didn't work.* Since then, many countries have done better at combatting the disease, while the U.S. has lagged behind. A spirit of cooperation, rather than a spirit of blaming and isolation, will probably do more for the U.S. in combatting the c****av***s than all the closing of borders that it could ever do, and all the talk of "foreigners".

A problem, such as this v***s, could originate anywhere. Something like that could originate in the U.S.

The Chinese may not be any more at fault in this than any other country; this time the v***s originated there, but that may be more a matter of luck than any fault.

By the work that the Chinese did tracking and combatting this v***s, they may have done us all a favor. We got warning that it was coming. We benefit from all the information that they obtained before we even got started.

Some people might have left the problem covered up for a longer time. (Then we'd be in deeper trouble.) At some point in time, the Chinese started reporting their findings internationally. Why would anybody do that? They do it because they see themselves as part of a world community. They help the world and the world helps them. (Of course cooperation isn't everything, but it's a big thing and a good thing.)

*(That is, they didn't work to distinguish whether people had C****-**. They may have worked to get more profits for the companies that made them. There would have been less profit for them if the U.S. had simply adopted the W.H.O. tests that other countries have been using successfully.)