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China’s Wuhan lockdown helped limit global spread of coronavirus, says World Health Organisation
- Bruce Aylward said the number of Covid-19 cases was ‘falling and falling because of the actions being taken’
- Senior official who led team that visited city at centre of outbreak praises ‘ambitious’ response to the crisis, describing it as ‘extraordinary’
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China’s decision to put Wuhan into lockdown a month ago helped limit the global spread of Covid-19 outbreak, a senior official from the World Health Organisation said on Monday.
Bruce Aylward, head of a WHO team that visited the city over the weekend, also confirmed that the number of new cases had been falling.
The epidemic, caused by a new strain of coronavirus, has already infected almost 80,000 people and killed more than 2,600.
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“I know people look at the numbers and say ‘what’s really happening?’,” Aylward told a joint press briefing with China’s National Health Commission in Beijing on Monday night.
“Very rapidly, multiple sources of data pointed to the same thing. This is falling and it’s falling because of the actions that are being taken.”
He praised China for locking down Wuhan – a city of 11 million people – and said the decision helped avert a crisis.
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