Truth in China's pandemic battle smashes absurd US allegations
0 Comment(s)
Print
E-mail Xinhua, May 11, 2020
Cover up?
It takes time to study and understand an unexpected attack by an unknown virus against human beings. China has provided timely information to the world in an open, transparent and responsible manner.
On Dec. 27, 2019, three cases of pneumonia of unknown cause were immediately reported by Zhang Jixian, a doctor in Wuhan, after she received the patients, the first reporting of suspected cases of a new disease by local authorities of China. On the same day, epidemiological investigation and testing on the patients concerned was conducted by the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
The next few days witnessed two emergency notices and a situation report released by the Wuhan authorities. On Dec. 31, China informed the WHO China Country Office of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause detected in Wuhan. On Jan. 3, 2020, China began sending regular, timely updates about the novel coronavirus to the WHO, and other countries including the United States.
Following the first public reporting of the pneumonia by the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission on Dec. 31, China completed the identification and sequencing of the virus as early as on Jan. 7, and shared the genome sequence information with WHO and other countries on Jan. 11.
On Jan. 20, the high-level expert group of the National Health Commission informed the media that the novel coronavirus could be transmitted from person to person. On Jan. 22, the WHO issued a warning about the potential risk of human-to-human transmission on its website, and eight days later, it declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).
"The WHO has been in constant technical communication with China since Jan. 3 on the severity, transmission dynamics and the possibility of sustained human-to-human transmission, the clinical course, and effectiveness of treatments, and the WHO has provided detailed information to the international community under the framework of the International Health Regulations (IHR)," said Dr. Gauden Galea, WHO representative in China.
China's transparency in data releasing has been consistent. On April 17, Wuhan issued a notification revising up confirmed cases by 325 to a total of 50,333, and fatal cases by 1,290 to a total of 3,869.
Revision is by no means equal to covering-up. On the contrary, it was out of a high sense of responsibility to the people and to the lives lost to the coronavirus that Wuhan took the initiative to revise the numbers. When the city was first hit by the virus, hospitals were running overloaded and some patients passed away at home, and there were missed, delayed, inadequate or inaccurate reporting of cases.
On April 28, Christoffer Koch and Ken Okamura, two economists from the United States and the United Kingdom, jointly published a paper based on studies of the data from China, Italy and the United States. They found that the confirmed infections in China match the distribution expected in Benford's Law and are similar to those in the other two countries, concluding that there is no possibility of manipulation of figures.
Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)