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Letters | Coronavirus: China deserves praise for pandemic fight and giving the world ample warning
- No country has ever leapt to announce any new disease outbreak, but there was no cover-up of Covid-19 in China
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Dr Chi Wang argues that China’s cover-up of the coronavirus crisis has lost the country trust. Really? History shows that no country has ever leapt to announce a new pathogen outbreak.
Initially China was no different, but it reacted to lead the world in dealing with outbreaks. Rather than blaming China, Dr Wang should hold China up as a beacon of success for stemming the spread domestically and giving the world ample warning to prepare.
On January 4, the head of the China CDC (Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention) talked over the phone with the director of the US CDC (Centres for Disease Control and Prevention) about the pneumonia outbreak. The two sides agreed to keep in close contact for information-sharing cooperation.
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On January 9, the WHO released a statement regarding a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, praising China’s mapping of the pathogen in such a short period and making the sequencing available to scientists globally.
It is implausible that the United States was unaware of events, relying solely on the WHO for access to privileged information. Trump continued to play down the threat posed to America, ignored the signs and put at risk his own citizens!
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