China coronavirus: Beijing breaks its silence, but only to ‘deny rumours’
- National disease control centre says new virus ‘is not Sars’, dismisses claims there has been a cover-up in the reporting of cases outside Wuhan
- But doctor in Shanghai, where a suspected case is believed to have been reported, says his hospital is preparing staff to deal with a possible pneumonia outbreak
In an information poster reproduced on social media and its own website on Saturday night, the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said the new virus was not Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome), which killed more than 700 people around the world in 2003.
The centre also dismissed suggestions that hospitals outside Wuhan had been secretly treating people infected with the virus, saying that all known cases were being dealt with in the central China city.
Despite its efforts to counter the so-called rumours, the notice left many people on social media with more questions than answers.
“How infectious the virus is, how serious it is and if it can spread from human to human – the poster just keeps people guessing,” said a person on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform.