According to the World Health Organization March 23 update, 196 countries, territories and areas have confirmed cases of COVID-19, aka the Wuhan virus.

Yes, Wuhan. When identifying the virus’ nom de guerre, it is geographically and factually correct, as well as medically imprimatur, to include Wuhan, the name of the mainland China city of 11 million (located in the Hubei province) where the globe-threatening novel coronavirus first came to the attention of qualified MDs.

Our global pandemic originated in Wuhan, but don’t blame the town or its heroic doctors and nurses for the plague’s Planet Earth killing spree. Put the blame where it belongs: on the Chinese Communist Party, or the CCP.

In late December 2019, doctors and other medical practitioners in Wuhan identified the pathogen and warned that it presented a threat to human life.

China is a face culture, but the CCP’s face culture has Mafia rules. The CCP suffers from systemic ineptitude and authoritarian narcissism, but it doesn’t want the world to know. So CCP apparatchik police treated Wuhan’s conscientious doctors as criminals and suppressed their warnings. CCP thuggery and brutality halted local efforts to confine the virus and prevented responsible medical efforts from disseminating information that might help global researchers find cures and vaccines.

My last paragraph sketches an alternative history that isn’t our gritty, deadly reality. We confront hard fact history: Beijing’s communists decided to let Chinese citizens die rather than confront the epidemic.

More facts: Between late December and mid-January, an estimated 5 million people left, entered or passed through Wuhan. Hard consequence: The virus went from local Wuhan to global hell.

Now pay attention to White House press corps virtue signalers who argue that associating Wuhan with the virus is ipso facto hate-filled racism toward Han Chinese.

Please, you stuffed suits. Answer this question: Is St. Louis encephalitis a slur on the city of St. Louis, the state of Missouri and St. Louis Cardinals baseball fans?

Only a “useful idiot” — to adapt a Stalinist communist term for dupes in the West whose Bible was Kremlin propaganda — would confuse a reasonable colloquial name with a prejudicial slur.

History: St. Louis encephalitis erupted in 1933 in St. Louis, Missouri. Mosquitoes transmit it.

American citizens demand the White House press corps treat Old Lyme, Connecticut, with sensitivity. Old Lyme is where Lyme disease was first diagnosed as a unique condition. German measles — hey, CNN, does that slur Germans? West Nile virus — West Nile is a province in Uganda, Washington Post. With regard to West Nile virus, where’s your outrage on behalf of West Nile’s Alur ethnic group? The Ebola virus was identified in 1976 in Yambuku, a village near the Ebola River. (To be fair, it was also identified in what is now South Sudan.) Rocky Mountain spotted fever is a bacterial disease. If you think the name slurs Colorado, seek psychotherapy, not a vaccination.

Attention White House press corps: China’s communist dictators think they are propaganda Zen masters. They believe their ability to wage relentless narrative warfare, globally confuse useful media idiots and coerce Chinese citizens gives them a global media edge.

Beijing elites have had some success with narrative warfare shticks. China’s “century of humiliation” narrative says imperialist powers bullied China from 1840 to 1949. Historical facts support core elements of that narrative. However, Beijing then adds that the 21st-century CCP government won’t let it happen again. What constitutes a strong government? The most potent CCP trope is territorial expansion (South China Sea). Adolf Hitler employed that trope.

But the narrative doesn’t stop there. A dedicated caste of CCP academics and philosophes has fabricated an ideological alternative to what they call the U.S.-led “liberal international order,” or LIO. These mercenary mouths depict the CCP dictatorship as an ideological successor to America.

Enter COVID-19/Wuhan virus. The disease “harshes” that narrative.

Austin Bay is a syndicated columnist and author.