Coronavirus: China is not safe while Covid-19 continues to spread around the world, experts say

Nations ‘can’t be at peace as long as there is an outbreak in any country’, Chinese respiratory disease specialist Zhong Nanshan says

‘I still don’t see any light for the global pandemic,’ says Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention

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Chinese experts say expediting the development of a vaccine is key to changing the course of the coronavirus pandemic. Photo: Simon Song

Published: 3:30pm, 11 Apr 2020Updated: 11:35pm, 11 Apr 2020

China’s top epidemiologists have warned that the country may not yet be out of the woods with regards to the coronavirus pandemic and that the responses of the United States and Europe to the global health crisis will be pivotal to how it unfolds.

Covid-19, the disease caused by the pathogen, is unlikely to be eradicated in the near future and achieving herd immunity is not a practical solution to the problem, they said.

“Europe has become more serious about [social] distancing … which is crucial to reduce transmission,” said Zhong Nanshan, a respiratory disease specialist and head of the National Health Commission’s senior experts panel for the Covid-19 outbreak.

“[But] we are very worried about the US, where [new cases] are growing at about 20,000 every day … the world cannot control [the disease] and be at peace as long as there is an outbreak in any country,” he said on Friday during a video conference with South Korean experts, hosted by the Chinese embassy in Seoul.

In a separate interview the same day with China News Service, Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, and another member of the expert panel, said the fact that new infections continued to be reported overseas meant China remained under threat.

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Coronavirus: China is not safe while Covid-19 continues to spread around the world, experts say

Nations ‘can’t be at peace as long as there is an outbreak in any country’, Chinese respiratory disease specialist Zhong Nanshan says ‘I still don’t see any light for the global pandemic,’ says Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention

Nations ‘can’t be at peace as long as there is an outbreak in any country’, Chinese respiratory disease specialist Zhong Nanshan says

‘I still don’t see any light for the global pandemic,’ says Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention