China reported more than 100 cases of new coronavirus infection for the seventh consecutive day, entering the most severe outbreak since March 2020. Separately, a panel of experts commissioned by the World health Organization (WHO) criticized China and WHO for not taking early containment measures in the early stages of the new coronavirus outbreak. The panel called for reform of WHO.
According to the latest outbreak announced by China’s National Health Commission on Jan. 19, China had 118 new confirmed cases of neo-coronavirus on Jan. 18, of which 106 were indigenous cases, mainly in Jilin, Hebei and Heilongjiang provinces, accounting for 42, 35 and 27 cases each, and one case in Beijing; in addition, 91 new cases of asymptomatic infection were also reported, of which 80 were indigenous cases. China has entered the seventh consecutive day with more than 100 single-day infections of the new coronavirus and is considered to be entering the most severe outbreak since March 2020.
Lockdowns have been imposed in at least 11 areas in China’s Hebei, Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces, and the total population affected by the closure measures in this latest wave of the outbreak so far exceeds 29 million.
In an interview with Chinese official media, Feng Zijian, deputy director of the CDC, set the tone for China’s epidemic prevention and control measures, saying that China’s strategy of “strict prevention and control” has been very successful overall. Feng did not forget to rewrite the narrative of China’s fight against the epidemic, saying that for the outbreaks that occurred in China after April last year, the virus originated from outside the country and that the earlier virus spread within China had been interrupted.
On the other hand, a panel of experts led by former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark released its interim report on Jan. 18. The report noted that “Chinese authorities could have implemented their efforts ‘more vigorously’ in January, shortly after the coronavirus began infecting the population.
We certainly should have tried to do better,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Jan. 19 in response to a reporter’s question about the issue. Not only China, but also the United States, Britain, Japan or any other country should try to do better, because in issues like public health, there is always no best, only better”. Hua Chunying said that saying we should try to do better is not the same as admitting that we did not do well before. These are two different things.
President Donald Trump‘s administration accused the WHO of being “China-centric” after the outbreak, which the agency denied.
The independent panel said, “The reality is that only a handful of countries have made the most of the information they have and responded to the emerging evidence of a pandemic.”
Experts also wondered why the WHO did not declare a global public health emergency sooner. The U.N. health agency convened an emergency committee on Jan. 22, but did not declare an international emergency until a week later. At the time, WHO said its expert committee was divided on whether a global emergency should be declared.
The panel’s report concluded that WHO should have declared a global pandemic earlier, but instead delayed until March 11. The experts called for reform of the WHO.
The World Health Organization announced on July 9, 2020, the establishment of an independent panel, co-led by Clark and Sirleaf, to assess the global response to the new crown epidemic under WHO leadership, with the aim of taking stock of the experiences and lessons learned by WHO and its member states in responding to the new crown epidemic. The final report of this independent panel is expected in May of this year.
An international team of WHO experts is currently investigating the origin of the new crown virus in Wuhan, China. Mike Ryan, WHO’s chief emergency expert, said on January 18 that the number of deaths from NCC pneumonia worldwide is expected to exceed 100,000 per week “very soon”.
Recent Comments