Top Shanghai pandemic expert slammed as ‘irresponsible’ for saying Covid is on its way out of China
- Neurobiologist Rao Yi’s scathing WeChat post comes day after Shanghai infectious diseases expert Zhang Wenhong’s comments at Sino-US forum
- ‘Nobody can rule out the possibility that the virus will be with us forever or that an explosion of cases will happen thrice a year,’ according to Rao
“Yesterday, a doctor made some irresponsible comments,” noted neurobiologist Rao Yi said in a post on WeChat, a social media platform.
“The fact is nobody can say with certainty today in which direction the Covid pandemic would go,” Rao wrote on Sunday. “Nobody can rule out the possibility that the virus will be with us forever, or that an explosion of cases will happen thrice a year with varying degrees of severity.”
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Rao’s comments directed at Zhang, who the previous day had told a Sino-US Forum on Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Shanghai that China’s pandemic exit was a foregone conclusion.
Zhang, the top Covid-19 adviser to the Shanghai government, is a household name in China for his candid comments about the pandemic.
He is also director of the infectious diseases department at Huashan Hospital of Shanghai’s Fudan University.
Without directly naming Zhang, Rao said some doctors in China tended to comment on issues beyond their realm of knowledge, some of which misled the public and officials.
“There’s one camp that believes they can convince officials to persist with [current policies] and defeat the virus. Another camp keeps saying that the pandemic will soon be over and everything will be fine,” wrote Rao, who is currently president of the Capital Medical University in Beijing.
“But no one will admit that [we] haven’t yet figured out the pattern of this pandemic, so we are practically crossing the river by feeling the stones,” he added, referring to a Chinese saying advocating a careful approach.
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“Covid-19 is different from any known virus, and it doesn’t stay steady like the hepatitis B virus, nor is it the same as influenza, which affects us every year,” Rao said. “And it may not just vanish like Sars.”
Zhang is not alone in facing the wrath of Rao during the pandemic.
Professor Jin Dongyan, a virologist with the School of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong, professors Du Junfei and Liang Jianzhang with the School of Journalism at Nanjing University, Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, and Anthony Fauci, the chief US infectious diseases expert – have all been in the line of fire.
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Some web users in China supported Rao’s stance. With Covid-19 cases surging in China following the easing of zero-Covid protocols, many are now sceptical of experts’ comments.
“The United States adopted a loose epidemic control policy for three years, and we have seen the White House restart the free Covid home test programme recently,” an anonymous user posted on Weibo, a Twitter-like platform.
“It’s hard to believe that China will get out of the epidemic soon.”
