The Washington Post - USA (2022-02-20)

A28 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 20 , 2022

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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HE LASTING image of the Bei- jing 2022 Olympics will be 15- year-old Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva collapsing into tears after a disastrous free skate that put her out of medal contention. Ms. Va- lieva tested positive for a banned substance, yet the Court of Arbitration for Sport allowed her to skate anyway. Her final performance was a painful display of a teenager’s mental breakdown. She fell twice and had mistakes throughout. The whole ordeal looked a lot like child abuse, complete with her coach berating her as she sobbed. The Olympics have long been filled with controversy, but this marked an- other low point. It cemented Beijing 2022 as the “scandal Olympics.” Even before Ms. Valieva’s drama, there were major problems. Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai was forced to retire from tennis and recant her accusations of sexual assault by a former Chinese official around the start of the Games. The International Olympic Committee then aided what amounted to a Chinese coverup. Concerns about China’s human rights abuses in Tibet and against the Uyghur population in Xinjiang were so strong that the United States, Australia, Canada and Britain adopted a diplomatic boy-

cott of the Games. Yet the IOC brushed off human rights concerns, even allow- ing a spokeswoman for Beijing 2022 organizers, Yan Jiarong, to tell reporters their questions about Uyghurs were “based on lies.” Then there was the fact that the Games took place in a nation whose leadership refuses to tell the full truth about how the covid-19 pandemic began, and has such a history of spying on people that journalists and athletes were warned to leave their regular tech devic- es at home and bring burner phones to the Olympics. IOC President Thomas Bach attempt- ed to gain back some moral high ground Friday by saying he was “disturbed” by the “chilling” women’s free skate fiasco. But it’s hard to take Mr. Bach seriously given that he led the IOC during Russia’s state-sponsored doping scandal at the 2014 Olympics. The IOC refused to come down hard on Russia, enabling the further abuse of athletes such as Ms. Valieva. To be fair, there were some moments of true Olympic spirit. Finnish cross- country skiing champion Iivo Niskanen waited at the finish line to cheer on the last to cross, Colombia’s Carlos Andres Quintana. Snowboarders from around the world lined up to cheer and hug

five-time Olympian Shaun White after his final run. Many rooted for Donovan Carrillo, Mexico’s first male figure skater in 30 years, who trains at a mall ice rink. And American Erin Jackson became the first Black woman to win an individual speedskating medal when she earned gold in the 500-meter event. But these uplifting moments were overshadowed by unsavory conduct and scandal. It took more than 40 days to check Ms. Valieva’s drug sample, a suspi- ciously long time. Russia’s female ice hockey team had a covid outbreak and failed to report test results on time. China’s Internet trolls shamed athletes who did not perform well. And Russia’s silver medalist in women’s figure skating shouted “I hate this sport” when she learned her result. If the Olympics are going to survive, organizers must do some soul-searching. Substance testing needs reform. More sports might need to set minimum age requirements, as women’s gymnastics has done. And the IOC needs to either ensure basic human rights in the host country or find a permanent host nation that is a democracy. The Olympics are supposed to cel- ebrate human athletic achievement, not which nation can best abuse young athletes and hoodwink the IOC.

The ‘scandal Olympics’

Beijing 2022 will be remembered for its controversies.

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HE END-TO-END encrypted messaging service WhatsApp is awfully handy for the everyday texter, providing a degree of built-in privacy for those wary of snoops and even offering an auto-delete option that ensures chats disappear into the ether. Apparently, public officials agree — even when the law requires them not to hide. D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s (D) administration uses WhatsApp widely, Axios reported last week. This confirms what WAMU discovered in 2019; this time, however, there’s particular cause for attention. The Post sued the city last summer for access to the mayor’s emails and WhatsApp communications regarding the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. D.C. said an attempt to find the WhatsApp messages “yielded no re- sponsive records,” but a judge wrote in an order last month that its search was “inadequate to meet its burden under FOIA [the Freedom of Information Act.”

This raises the question: Can any search of communications on a private messaging service be adequate to meet the public burden of transparent government? D.C. is hardly alone in relying on services such as WhatsApp for official busi- ness. Only two months ago, The Post found that Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) was relying on an electronic chat- room system that destroys messages in 24 hours. Adoption of these text-wiping services almost certainly violates the spirit, if not the letter, of open records laws. But because it is nigh impossible for an outsider to prove the use of an app designed to delete evidence of precisely that, much less to identify what communications on what subjects have been purged, no technological reckoning has arrived. Ms. Bowser’s office told us the law is being followed with regard to all communications. But while WhatsApp chats don’t auto-delete as a default and can be backed up, the office has been oblique in

its disclosures about the policies and procedures that surround the preserva- tion of messages on the service. And there’s really no way to check whether individuals are following whatever rules do exist. At the very least, the city ought to mandate that communications sent on private systems be backed up to an official server — effectively banning any chat-destruction tools in the process. Better yet, state and local governments would refrain from the regular use of these services entirely, and rely instead on tools built for the purpose of archiv- able communication. Former president Donald Trump was recently accused of flushing papers down the White House toilets during his ten- ure. This behavior is so obviously incrimi- nating that even he felt compelled to deny it. Ensuring the disappearance or invit- ing the inaccessibility of digital communications isn’t any less troubling just because officials’ phones do the dirty work for them.

A lack of transparency

Public officials shouldn’t hide behind private messaging systems.

Regarding Shane Sullivan’s Feb. 13 Local Opinions essay, “Facing a surge in overdose deaths, D.C. should now de- criminalize drugs”: The decriminalization of drugs is ap- pealing not just in D.C. but also in the United States in general. The decriminalization of drugs would help diminish racial disparities that are embedded in the American prison system, promote public safety and health, and allocate money to better resources. In the United States, minorities are incarcerated for drug offenses at much higher rates and are more likely to receive harsher sentences than Cauca- sians. The decriminalization of drugs (especially cannabis) can significantly reduce the racial disparity this country is facing. Money now spent on the drug war and penitentiaries could be put to better use by allocating it to the expansion of drug treatment programs. In most cases, drug addiction is a disease. Therefore, it is appropriate that it be treated as such. Offenders rarely get the treatment they need for disorders while in jails and prisons. This is essential to public safety and health, as those who struggle with addiction receive the help they need and no longer pose a threat to those around them. Sophia Godinho Silveira, Atlanta

Legalize d rugs everywhere

In his Feb. 16 op-ed, “Putin and Xi might be unwittingly saving the West,” David Von Drehle gave a gently mocking tip of the hat to the Russian and Chinese dictators for their unforced errors in post- ing an army at the borders of Ukraine and in raising the curtain on the real China by hosting this year’s Olympics, respectively, but he made a material and obvious omission of the person who has wittingly done more than either of them to rebuild the Western alliance, restore global order and demonstrate that the values of democracy aren’t dead. That person is, of course, President Biden, who, almost alone, was willing to snub Beijing for its human rights abuses by withholding a U.S. diplomatic presence at the Winter Games. And it was Mr. Biden alone who had to stiffen the spine of NATO members in facing down Moscow’s tanks. As Mr. Von Drehle cautioned, only time will tell if Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin have overplayed their hands. Like- wise, Mr. Biden’s counter-initiatives might have to await the judgment of historians rather than that of U.S. voters in this fall’s congressional elections, which will almost certainly be fought over domestic issues exclusively, come what may in Europe. Mr. Biden might never be successful in getting the Build Back Better legislation that he wanted for this country. However, his presidential legacy might well be de- fined by his success in building back better a global order that believes in a real rule of law. James McKeown, Falls Church

Rebuild the Western alliance

Regarding the Feb. 13 front-page article “Saga shows Trump’s disdain for records act”: People might confuse the Office of the President with the citizen who occupies that office. The president is not that office but the protector of it. If that person breaks the office, s/he is like the director of an art museum destroying the artwork within. Any president who knowingly destroys or mishandles docu- ments of that office should be held responsible. Robert Feiertag, Greenbelt

The office, not the person

Charles Lane was right in his Feb. 16 Wednesday Opinion column, “On help- ing people hear better, Biden lets mar- kets have their say,” to criticize policies that call upon the government to “pick up the tab” for social goods without negotiating their cost. But in singling out Democrats for supporting such policies, he overlooked the Republicans’ signifi- cant responsibility for this problem. When drafting one of the most egre- gious recent examples, the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, it was House Republicans, led by Rep. W. J. “Billy” Tauzin (La.), who insisted on including a prohibition against Medi- care negotiating drug prices in the legislation. As a result, the federal government has had to foot a skyrocket- ing bill for pharmaceutical costs — costs that will only continue to increase as the U.S. population ages. Both parties should insist that the Medicare prohibition be eliminated and that all future social policies allow the government to negotiate the cost of any goods involved. Sonya Michel, Silver Spring

Republicans share the blame

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FREDERICK J. RYAN JR., Publisher and Chief Executive Officer

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HINA’S APPROACH to stamping out the coronavirus on the mainland has been brute force: citywide lockdowns, aggressive testing and tracing, and highly restrictive rules. The policy that China calls “covid zero” has tamped down major outbreaks, such as in Xi’an, where residents were in lockdown for a month. But now, China faces a difficult and alarming challenge in the rapid spread of the omicron variant in Hong Kong. The strict measures of the mainland may be difficult to impose on the semiautonomous territory, but without them, the outbreak looks certain to expand. China fought the virus in Beijing, Xi’an, Tianjin and in Henan province by flooding the zone with testing, tightly restricting flights and mobility, and ag- gressively isolating those who tested positive, locking down whole cities when necessary. In Xi’an, the strict measures set off a flood of complaints on social media about lack of access to food, supplies and medical care — one preg- nant woman was denied entrance to a hospital until she tested negative, and miscarried — but overall China’s meth- ods stopped the spread. While many of China’s 1.4 billion people are vaccinated, preliminary reports suggest that its vac- cines are not as protective against omicron. So China has relied on its rigid authoritarian system to erect walls against viral transmission. Hong Kong is increasingly under the political thumb of Beijing, which im- posed a new national security law that has been used to eliminate freedoms that were a signature of the colony before the 1997 British handoff to China. But Hong Kong’s pandemic policies avoided the kind of blanket citywide measures taken on the mainland. Hong Kong used strict social distancing rules, limits on international travel, rapid contact tracing, and mandatory hospital admissions for the infected, all of it called “dynamic covid zero” aimed at reducing infections to zero. For most of 2021, it worked to keep infections low. Then came omicron. The highly trans-

missible variant has seeped through the cracks and taken hold. The virus has spread to dozens of senior care homes, where the elderly are especially vulner- able; among those over 70 years old, only 56 percent have had one vaccine dose. The territory’s case counts are skyrocket- ing, and its hospitals overwhelmed. The Post’s Shibani Mahtani and Theodora Yu found elderly patients lining up outside the Caritas Medical Center, and one patient who tested positive was isolated in a women’s bathroom. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has instruct- ed Hong Kong’s government to prioritize

controlling the virus “before anything else.” Advisers being sent from Beijing appear to be telling Chief Executive Carrie Lam to carry out citywide testing. They might seek more severe lockdowns, but that will run into resistance. Hong Kong’s people are more suspicious and distrustful of China since their liberties were so brazenly taken away. There aren’t many good options to slow the spread at this point, and if the virus is not extinguished in Hong Kong, it could spark outbreaks on the mainland. Much is at stake for Hong Kong — and for China.

China’s ‘covid zero’ is falling apart

Much is at stake for Hong Kong — and for Beijing.

BERTHA WANG/BLOOMBERG NEWS Covid- 19 patients at the Caritas Medical Centre in Hong Kong o n F eb. 16.

News Editorial and opinion SALLY BUZBEE RUTH MARCUS Executive Editor Deputy Editorial Page Editor CAMERON BARR KAREN TUMULTY Senior Managing Editor Deputy Editorial Page Editor KAT DOWNS MULDER JO-ANN ARMAO Chief Product Officer & ME Associate Editorial Page Editor STEVEN GINSBERG Managing Editor TRACY GRANT Managing Editor KRISSAH THOMPSON Managing Editor SHARIF DURHAMS Deputy Managing Editor MONICA NORTON Deputy Managing Editor MARK W. SMITH Deputy Managing Editor SCOTT VANCE Deputy Managing Editor BARBARA VOBEJDA Deputy Managing Editor

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the inordinately powerful and profitable tobacco industry. Donna Chacko, University Park The writer is a retired radiation oncologist.

In his Feb. 15 op-ed, “How to save lives from cancer with tools we already have,” Edward Abrahams wrote of improving the lives of cancer patients by providing better access to the latest developments in science and technology. Our health- care system hasn’t figured out how to equitably provide these expensive treat- ments to all who might benefit. An underrated way to reduce the cost of cancer care is to prevent cancer. The best way to do that is to reduce tobacco use. Thirty percent of all cancer deaths in the United States are caused by tobacco. The public health campaigns and lobbying efforts of the past 50 years successfully reduced the prevalence of adult smokers from 40 percent to below 20 percent. But, despite that, smoking today is the leading cause of preventable disease in the United States, killing more than 400,000 Americans each year. These statistics are appalling. Re- duction of tobacco use could save bil- lions of dollars and prevent untold needless suffering. Leaders in government, policy, law and public health must accept the challenge of reducing tobacco use by intensi- fying public education and facing up to

Beat cancer with prevention

MICHAEL DE ADDER

 Letters can be sent to [email protected]. Submissions must be exclusive to The Post and should include the writer’s address and day and evening telephone numbers.

The Washington Post - USA (2022-02-20)

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