US virus fight Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

As winter is upon the northern hemisphere, experts are warning that a new peak of infections is looming, especially in the US and Europe, where COVID-19 cases are already high enough. Some Western countries are mulling to set strengthened rules to fight the virus again, as another step of adjusting back and forth their relevant policies. 

Last week, the US extended the COVID-19 pandemic's status as a public health emergency for another 90 days. Germany's federal health minister urged states to reintroduce mask mandatory for indoor areas. 

It is puzzling because it was only a month ago when US President Joe Biden claimed the "pandemic is over," and Europe has long been the pioneer of living with COVID in the pursuit of building up resilience. 

Now they seem at loss in their COVID policies. Their words and deeds are sending conflicting messages. At one point they want to lie flat, yet at another they want to make some effort. 

Chinese netizens have thus made a nickname for such approach in dealing with pandemic - doing sit-ups. West's policies are made depending on where the swaying politicians are between politics and science. Political needs have in the most of the time overwhelmed a clear understanding of science, and even the significance of people's lives. 

Against this backdrop, the West, especially the US, despite with the highest COVID-19 death toll, still has the nerve to point fingers at China's zero-COVID policy. China has accentuated to put the people and their lives above all else and sticks to a dynamic zero-COVID policy. Yet Western media outlets, covering their eyes and ears, are only busy putting labels such as "economically damaging" and raising "public anger" on China's way of reining in its epidemic.

Being against whatever China does has already become some Westerners' favorite political ritual, which has blinded them from seeing the truth. For them, which country is on the side of science in coping with the crisis is no longer a matter of right or wrong, but a matter of political correctness, Yang Xiyu, a senior research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies, told the Global Times. This comes from pure pride and prejudice, he added. 

Amid the escalating emphasis on geopolitical competition, hyped up by the West, it seems hard for quite a few Westerners to see the good side of China. Whenever China does something right, they quickly smear China's endeavor to prevent China's influence from growing. This is incorrigible zero-sum mentality, observers said.  

According to Yang, the globe is confronting fierce contradictions. But one of the most urgent public enemies and challenges of all mankind is the pandemic. As the public health crisis is far from over, all countries should safeguard two bottom lines - first, sticking to the general rules of crisis management; second, countries should set aside their divergences. 

Western countries should realize that the politicization of COVID response will do no good to the globe, not to mention themselves. Economists are warning that their countries are tipping into recession. And this has everything to do with their chaotic handling of COVID. 

The slander of the West won't prevent China from working hard to do its own thing well. China will better balance the two sides of its approach - both dynamic and zero-COVID. And that will be the most powerful strike back against the West's defamations, Yang noted. 

When the West launches wars of words on COVID approaches, maybe ask yourself: what has your country done, and what would your country do?