The central assumption - that China will "respect" the "weak fire" of Africans calling it Wuhan Virus - is baseless.

The most that will happen is, you guys will undo decades of work by Africans in public health, and re-normalize naming diseases after places. https://twitter.com/Chxta/status/1249962942814191626

China will ignore you.

But tomorrow, when the next virus is discovered in Lagos, you just helped undermine the 2014 W.H.O. guidelines that would have stopped the World calling it "Lagos Virus".

This calling it "Wuhan Virus" out of anger is no more effective against China than any of the other tantrums Africans have thrown. I would ignore it as more of the same ineffectual stuff, but this particular one leaves AFRICA open for same abuse later, with graver consequences.

I worked in public health for a decade. I saw the painstaking work done by African technocrats to end the convention of naming diseases after places of origin, because the stigma that stems from it ALWAYS affects poorer nations worse than richer ones.

Putting back into play a weapon to which you are more vulnerable, because you have an opportunity to use it against an enemy who, while irritated by it, is effectively immune, is shortsighted, and poor strategy.

We must be coldblooded in our retaliations, not prone to shrill clapbacks.